I am new to this.

I have a friend that has a TJ with RE 5.5 LA lift and 37's It rides real well as far as not as bumpy as a stock jeep.

My question:

I want to build a daily driver that is extreme like this jeep, I want to be able to crawl the most possible and still drive to and from work. This request is so I know what I will want, how much money to have set aside before I begin and such. I also plan on upgrading my axles in the beginning so I don't have the problems in the future.
So in short if money was no object how would you do it?

I started with a LJ X for 15K - sold the axles and
used Dynatrac axles for the front and rear. Using the RE 5.5 and building from there - roll cage was first thing along with seats and five point.

Planning on dumping the six for a Hemi next year.
Going to a Atlas 4 also.

Ok so after reading a lot of posts on this site I have more direct questions.

Because you want to air down tires and not have a lot of tire deflection do you want bigger wheels for 35 inch tires?

Body lifts? Do they allow more clearance for the tires and leave the motor and tranny lower there for not raising the center of gravity as much?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Altaone,

I put the 1 inch motor mount lift in to get the fan centered - and I got a little angle from it.

The RE kit is tight and about as far up as you can get so I had to adjust the transmission mount to get a workable angle - but compared to my TJ the LJ has way more room - over a foot and a half so the drive line angle not a problem for me.


So all in all the motor is about stock and the tranny is a little lower for me. This was a problem on my TJ because it was sooooo short.

As far as wheels and tires go - I had no problems with my TJ with 35 on fifteen inch wheels - seveteens are nice because you can get a bigger brake system in - and with all the mods I made to my TJ the brakes had become marginal. I don't think I would have considered 37-38 tires with my TJ - now when I switch to my V-8
and I have 500 hp I will have to consider what will happen to my side walls - so I had I think the bigger brakes and maybe bead locks is an option to consider.

I got my axles two inches wider - so I think my LJ is more stable than my TJ ever was. And I can go to 37-39 when I get the V-8 in.

When I am aired down the only time I have an issue to watch for is when I am side cutting a sliddy hill and I am worried that the side walls of the seventeens might break open and dump on me - my fifteens were aways tight no matter how much , or little, air I had in them. . The seveteens are not as tight and I have to have a compressor to air up in the field.