I finally got some time to take some poser shots of my (factory locked, since everyone will ask) fzj80. I bought it in march, fixed a bunch of stupid issues (no heating/ac, radio didn't work right, added CDL switch, pin 7 mod, new a/c condensor, new head gasket, blah blah blah) and then started hackin away on it.
I threw some White Knuckle Off Road sliders on it, which are fantastic. John from WKOR is one of the best people I've dealt with in the 4-wheeling community for parts. Next was extended brake lines and springs - just lifted it up and removed the front driveshaft so I could get an idea of where it would sit. I chose 5" TJM coils which netted out to around 6" of lift. I special ordered some 345/75R16 KM2s which took forever for tirerack to get to me, but those showed up while I was noodling out the math to do a semi-parallel 4-link for the front.
My 4-link front is similar to the 4-link in the rear, or a 4-link in the front of a TJ wrangler. Still uses the track bar but retains my front swaybar as well. I don't have any great pics of the mounting / links, but I did take these pics with my cell last night.
Still working out some kinks in the front end - wheel bearings are pretty much shot and I want to re-gear and swap in the longfields I picked up a while back. I also want to work out a stiffer swaybar somehow, which sort of negates the purpose of retaining the stock one, but oh well.
I have not taken it offroad since linking/lifting it. In these pictures, which sort of don't do it justice, the right rear tire was about 32" off the ground. My front shocks prevented the front from drooping any further (doetsch tech 8385/8386's) but the links weren't binding. I need to add wheel spacers since the front tires can hit the upper coil buckets when stuffing.
The goal was to design a system that could theoretically "bolt on" to the axle in the stock locations and onto the frame. While I'd like to design these things up and get some plates water-jetted, I need to see if I can improve the body roll to a point where I think people would be happy with the results. Otherwise, this design is relegated to a slightly more road-friendly red-headed stepchild in the world of the 3-links where it works great off-road but wouldn't satisfy 95% of people on this forum who still have a strong need for on-road performance. This probably explains the lack of solutions from any major vendors to-date (though *everyone* claims to be "working on it").
It would be cool to partner up with some people on this board to come up with a way to design a front-mounted sway bar. Everyone has the same idea (which is a good one - to use a splined sway bar with a lockout hub and mount it in the front) but I guess nobody's taken the time to design and build something.
I threw some White Knuckle Off Road sliders on it, which are fantastic. John from WKOR is one of the best people I've dealt with in the 4-wheeling community for parts. Next was extended brake lines and springs - just lifted it up and removed the front driveshaft so I could get an idea of where it would sit. I chose 5" TJM coils which netted out to around 6" of lift. I special ordered some 345/75R16 KM2s which took forever for tirerack to get to me, but those showed up while I was noodling out the math to do a semi-parallel 4-link for the front.
My 4-link front is similar to the 4-link in the rear, or a 4-link in the front of a TJ wrangler. Still uses the track bar but retains my front swaybar as well. I don't have any great pics of the mounting / links, but I did take these pics with my cell last night.
Still working out some kinks in the front end - wheel bearings are pretty much shot and I want to re-gear and swap in the longfields I picked up a while back. I also want to work out a stiffer swaybar somehow, which sort of negates the purpose of retaining the stock one, but oh well.
I have not taken it offroad since linking/lifting it. In these pictures, which sort of don't do it justice, the right rear tire was about 32" off the ground. My front shocks prevented the front from drooping any further (doetsch tech 8385/8386's) but the links weren't binding. I need to add wheel spacers since the front tires can hit the upper coil buckets when stuffing.
The goal was to design a system that could theoretically "bolt on" to the axle in the stock locations and onto the frame. While I'd like to design these things up and get some plates water-jetted, I need to see if I can improve the body roll to a point where I think people would be happy with the results. Otherwise, this design is relegated to a slightly more road-friendly red-headed stepchild in the world of the 3-links where it works great off-road but wouldn't satisfy 95% of people on this forum who still have a strong need for on-road performance. This probably explains the lack of solutions from any major vendors to-date (though *everyone* claims to be "working on it").
It would be cool to partner up with some people on this board to come up with a way to design a front-mounted sway bar. Everyone has the same idea (which is a good one - to use a splined sway bar with a lockout hub and mount it in the front) but I guess nobody's taken the time to design and build something.
