has anyone ever fabbed up a long arm 8" lift for a zj?? i am getting ready to design a long arm 8" for a buddy and i need any input i can get!!

one of our local richboys hired my friends to do a 7-8" lift on his ZJ. He had RE's XJ 4.5 coils in the back, the biggest coils that RE makes in the front(i cant remember what size) the ACOS spacers from Rocky Road, and Claytons long arms. He got new trac bars front and rear with Rancho 9000s. It looks really good, too bad the Mickey Thompsons will never see dirt. I dont have any pics though.

i was suspecting that for a lift that high you would need a long arm system. i guess i gotta hit the drawing board!!

look at lifted TJs

a buddy of mine has a 93 ZJ (i frequently wheel with him) and i keep tryin to talk him into lettin me and another dude fab him up some badass longarms w/ a triangulated rear (not sure whether they're triangulated already or not)

it seems to me like it's be easy as shit, radius type arms up front, (w/ tracbar) and a triangulated 3-link rear. we could at least use some of the stock mounts on the axle (unless i talk him into my XJ d44 at the same time)

there's a bunch of sheetmetal on them ZJs that doesn't matter.

cool, i hope that other dude is good at welding and shit:flipoff2:

i have some pics of a badass zj, but i can't post em cuz i am dumb:confused:

check out Cbassett's(sp?) hes got a badass one:D

send any pics to this link (wasatchoutlaw4x4@attbi.com)

I made some longarms. The toughest part is the subframe - I went SUPER beef since at the time I made mine (only about 14 months ago or so....), very few people had put longarms on a ZJ, so I couldn't find much info on what to do. I'll send you some pictures for thought.

If I had the chance to do it again, I'd have put the misalignment fitting (the threads) closer to the on the ends of the arms, not 8 inches out from the frame side (which is 1/4 of the way out on a 33 inch arm). I copied RE's arms (bad call) and ended up with a fail point in the middle (even though I did use 1 1/8 Gr8-equiv threaded rod, but still, I have bent it a little.)

Search on here for longarms - there's tons of info. Also, the nagca.com forum is good for grands tech - lots of heavily modded station wagons over there.

Bob

PS 8" will make your Jeep complete rollbait. Lift lower and cut more for bigger tires. :)

a buddy of mine has 8" on his XJ without long arms, just RE's drop brackets, check it out and more here

http://home.bellsouth.net/personalpages/scripts/community.dll?ep=16&groupid=23544&ck=&ver=3.0

ZJ suspensions are basically the same as the TJ. I'm not sure of the technical details, but the long Wrangler/Cherokee coil springs should work. Also look at what Currie did with the lower control arms in the rear to eliminate suspension jacking under some conditions.

8 inches is a bit tall for a trail worthy GC. I ran 32s on 3 inches of lift and although they rubbed hard it worked really well even with it's open diffs. With about 5-6 inches and trimming I bet you could run 33s. The strength of the GC is the suspension along with it's wheel base gives it a smooth compliant ride at high speeds and plenty of flex in the slow stuff. With 8 inches of lift you'll lose much of that but maybe the long arms will let it work well

33's are kinda small for that wheelbase aint they? ;)

you need at least 36's to start to use the wheelbase of the ZJ.

5-6 inches of lift is all that is needed to run a 36. That is if you are serious about running it. If you are a bitch and want it to look real pretty then you are going to need 8 inches to run a 35.

I run a RE superide 3.5 and run a 33x12.50 with NO rubbing at full bounce and jounce with the tire in any position. I did this with 4 inches of backspacing on my wheels and I cut all the offending stuff I could away from the tire. What I couldn't cut out I pounded with a 10 pound sledge until it was right.

Long Arm it! don't even mess with a short arm lift if you are serious.

Here is my junk.

http://www.clan-phoenix.com/jeeps/heep.htm