Appauldd

It's been a while since I posted in here. And...I've been busy. Take a look at the Rock Krawler Adventure Series long arm kit. I matched the lift with a set of Falcon 2.1 shocks for a 4-6" lift and steering stabilizer. The Jeep has 35" Maxxis tires and Vision Nemisis 111 17" wheels.

For a short time I installed the lift without the long arms while I worked to fabricate the exhaust and get the long arm brackets welded in. First impressions...the long arms made the Jeep ride so much smoother and more controlled on the road. Much of the sway and lean is gone. High speed cornering, like on a highway on ramp, feels confident and precise. As for off road ,all I can say is WOW. The confidence I gained from crawling, to playing in the sand, to taking drops and climbing is amazing. I really feel the Jeep can do more than I can. It's absolutely amazing. This is not without some drawbacks. The 3.5" lift netted a bit more than this. I'm sure it will settle in time. The rear arms at full stuff impact the rear body mounts. It also happens on a harsh bump. I even added 3" of bump stop to the rear and it didn't remedy the arm hitting. There is less than 3/4" of clearance between the body bolt (after trimming) and the arm. See the last photo. Hopefully RK can provide a solution. Lastly, the exhaust modification was intense. It takes a lot of work to get the exhaust routed around the front control arm mounts.

The components of the kit as so very high quality. Everything was packaged well and arrived undamaged. The arms are solid and very heavy. All of the ends of the arms have the newest version of Krawler joints. RKs answer to the Johnny Joint we are so familiar with. The arms and track bars have lock nuts that require an ungodly amount of torque. It would be nice if there were some flats in the arms to hold them secure for tightening. Use of a crow foot set is a must.

The kit is not a simply bolt on affair. But, the result is fantastic. If you are looking for an extremely strong lift kit that will take abuse, the Rock Krawler Adventure Series Long Arm is it.

Even with the installation challenges I would not go back even if I could. If anyone is on the fence about a long arm kit....just do it. I assure you, you will be glad you did!

This was with the lift installed but without the long arms.

All of the below pictures are the full kit installed.

TheDirtman

I would put a metal cloak long arm over any RK any day of the week although I don't like a couple things about it. Much better fit and quality. Glad to see RK is paying attention to shipping now. Poor location on those brackets and poor geometry with them. Looks like they are trying to copy the Off Road Evolution high clearance kit which put the brackets outside the frame like this. Very little link separation on the frame side. I checked the instructions link online to see if they addressed the body mount but that link gives you instruction for an old 3 link rear suspension. Funny how whenever I get on their website I find errors. I am sure it will magically fix itself.
With flat fenders and 35" tires why do you have 3" of extra bump stop? Shock body length?
Glad you are happy with the results after the time and money you spent on it. Where is that wheeling spot at?

Appauldd

Everyone has their opinion on what kit to get. I chose Rock Krawler because it is ultra durable and I like the bends in the lower arms to help with clearances. Also, RK is in NY so they designed their new joints to withstand east coast winters and salt. We get similar crappy weather in the Cincinnati area where I live. And....not many people here run RK because of their past reputation. I assure you, they've been quite good to me.

The rear brackets are in an identical location to many other long arm suppliers (Synergy, Clayton, ORE). Its the upper arm mounting location that gives some trouble. You are correct, the instructions online are not very good and have a lot of errors. I've been emailing back and forth with RK about this. They assured me they will make the changes I suggested.

The extra bump stop was added to prevent the shocks from bottoming out. Measured at ride height I added 1/2" more bump than what is showing on the shock shaft. I thought this would be enough. Under full stuff, the upper arm hits the body bolt before the bump stop hits. RK is in discussions with me about a potential remedy. I'm with you, I don't want to limit my travel any more. A long arm is supposed to maximize suspension travel. It would be fantastic if RK would add a small bend like Clayton for the upper arm to clear the body bolt.

The wheeling spots are Slade KY in the red river gorge area (waterfall) and also at Badlands off-road park in Attica IN (rocks).

TheDirtman

I thought that concrete slab looked familiar, I used to be at badlands about twice a month before I moved West. Great place to wheel.I have installed synergy, clayton, off road evolution, metal cloak, rock crawler, jks, rough country, rusty's, and skyjacker kits. RK is near the bottom of the list in terms of design, quality, and instructions. Their joints are no more corrosion resistant then anyone else and if that is a reason you choose them you just got sucked into their marketing. Here is a quote from RK on another recent thread. "Yes, the Krawler joints have a metal retaining ring and metal housing, is that something that would seize and cause a failure "in a trail"? Nope, it could cause a challenge when rebuilding" Here is another quote from them, "We have been building upon our offerings for 15+ years, always making advancements and improvements." You can read this as "we put out poorly designed products and fix things when people complain" which seems to be the case as they have redesigned their joints several times. Kits have so many issues that they end up rebranding them which was recently done. You would think that a company that has been doing this for this long would not put out a kit that has this issue you described you are right a simple bend would take care of the issue. Too bad you ended up being a test subject in their R&D.

You made your choice and are overall happy with it so that's all good for you, but I will always point out their shortcoming for fluff posts like yours touting how good a truly marginal product is.

You could find someone with a tube bender in your area and put a slight bed in them to gain the clearance. Don't take my criticism personal it is not directed at you, I just point out for those doing research on to look past the marketing and to what you are actually getting compared to other kits on the market that never seem to have issues with installs because they are actually designed by a suspension company rather then a machine shop that put out a lift kit.

Those rear frame link mount would be much better if they put the lower in front of the body mount and the upper just behind it and higher up.

Appauldd

It seems as though you are negative about every kit out there. I'm certain every kit has it's quirks as none are "perfect". As for reading into advancements....its called continuous improvement and all successful companies must innovate (change) if they intend to stay in business. Again, nothing is perfect. However, anything can be made better, but only through experience of what was bad in the first place. After all, your experience would not be as such if you were not innovating too.

My post was not intended to be a "fluff" post. It was my experience of the kit I chose based on the the research I performed. It is about a kit that I found nearly zero information on. So, I knew the risks going in. Notice I went with Falcon shocks rather than RK branded versions. Clearly I am not being brand loyal.

It's clear you have a lot of experience and that is wonderful. It would be great to use that experience to improve things for everyone rather than "point out" the faults. It does not aid to the discussion and only instills doubts. Maybe that is what you were going for?

To go back on topic,

The kits had many challenges that I was not ready for. The exhaust re-routing was a nightmare. Cutting up a brand new y pipe kit was not my intentions. However, the end result is quite nice. Now I'm struggling with the bump stop situation. Maybe another 1/2 inch is needed in the rear and then I should go to 37 and all will be good in the world. Maybe I was wrong in selecting the Falcon shocks to go with the kit because they allow a little more up travel. It really does not matter at this point. I need to remedy the rear arms hitting the body bolts so I can avoid damaging things more in the future. Let the adventure begin.

TheDirtman

I did give you some points on how to make it better. Simply put a bend in the upper arms. You can also add bump stop. Pretty easy solutions and not sure what you expect RK to do over the internet? If you add bump stop you can also raise the lower shock mounts to get back to full shock travel, that is if you coils are long enough at full droop. This along with trimming the excess lower control arm mount will give you more clearance off road for those rocky trails. If nobody pointed out the lift kit faults, the end user would find out after the lift was installed and it would be too late. So you would rather people buy a poorly designed product rather then educating them on lifts in general?

Its too bad you didn't read this thread while you were looking for info. https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/modi...review-344680/. And yes no kit is perfect as people have different needs and you have to deal with the limitations of the JK design. These things are never pointed out when doing research and in all reality most people doing a lift have know idea about suspensions, they just read the hype on social media and the people pushing a specific product.

As far as "improvements" you just don't see the issues with other companies products because they actually are a suspension first company that does the proper testing and fitment on their products.

Adding 1/2" of bump and putting on 37's will not result in all being good inn the world and will lead to other issues.

The only doubt I would be introducing is for someone that may be looking at buying this kit.

Like I said don't take this personal, you can always improve on what you have. Whats done is done. Enjoy your jeep.

Appauldd

I do appreciate your feedback and offerings of things to improve. Thank you for that. My intention wasn't to get RK to solve everything over the internet. I've spoken to them on the phone and have several emails go back and forth on my findings and suggestions and they have been very open and assisting.I too was trying to give honest feedback of my experience and the rear arms hitting the body mount is not an ideal situation for a kit of this level.

Given your vast experience, what is stopping you from creating an "ideal" lift kit? Believe me, coming from a military and industrial manufacturing background, I assure you it is not as easy as you believe. There is costs involved in everything and yet a product needs to be "affordable". Further, Quality is ultimately the goal of any manufacturer....but quality is the belief of the customer. Every customer has a different opinion of what quality truly is. If we had unlimited budgets we can get the perfect setup and the world would be in perfect harmony. However, we are in an imperfect world where trial and error is what leads to development and improvements. Feedback is absolutely necessary to this evolution. However, not all feedback should be terrible news.

Regarding the ideas about the shock relocation and the bump stops....I believe this is the path to take. It will be most unfortunate to lose much of my up travel though. I guess this is the compromise I must live with by going bigger. The statement about the 37s was not serious. I know it would not be the ideal solution. I was merely poking fun at the band aid fix that would come from most people. Thanks for understanding that.

I also appreciate your willingness to debate a bit on the topic. Everyone has an opinion and a direction. Your point of view, albeit a bit bias against RK, is warranted based on your experience. Thank you for you honesty.

TheDirtman

An ideal kit is not that hard to design. Most people put way too much height and want to run long travel shocks with too big a tire. Unfortionaly they don't know how to properly set things up and very few are willing to change mounting locations because of the expense of paying someone to do it. Lift manufactures are more then happy to sell you a big lift with lots of bolt on parts that don't maximize articulation. Just throw some longer coils and shocks along with some other adjustable parts to make things work a bit better. People also think that lifts do a lot for making the jeep perform better off road when in reality they really don't other then some better angles and there are ways to address that without excessive lifts. Long arm kits do give you a better ride on the road but do not give you more articulation vs a short arm kit off road. This is something many people don't understand and a long arm rock crawler may hang up more due to the location of the lower rear arms that hang down below the frame. You will see a lot of rock rash on your lower arms as you wheel in the rocks. You also have to know as you get into the higher lifts all your brackets on the axle become misaligned due to the needed oration of the axle for caster and pinion angles. A well designed suspension would address these brackets to keep your coils straight and your track bars aligned.

You actually have one of the better set ups although maybe a bit too much lift compared to many out there. Flat fenders, 35's, lockers, and I would assume 4.10 gears. Its too bad you can't have more up travel in your set up for a better balanced vehicle. I used to be in the camp that was all about massive travel even if were unbalanced with 80/20 down up ratio's but have learned that the up travel is just as important as the total travel for a god balanced ride that will wheel more level in the rocks and is less prone to roll over. This is what metal cloak does with their kits designed around the 6 pack shock. It gives you a lot of travel at low lift heights to make for an impressive wheeler.With 35's you could run 13" of shock travel on a short arm and have a much more stable ride than any other lift out there that runs 12" travel shocks and 3.5"+ of lift.

With your current set up how much overall travel and how much actual up travel do you have?

Appauldd

Your insight is intriguing. It's often easy to throw on a set of 37s and negotiate most obstacles. Sure the ride may suck, but you can get through it. I found that 35s and the "right" setup will perform very well rounded. I was on 35s before I put on the RK lift with nothing more than a TF level kit and some Bilstein shocks. It worked. However, since putting on the lift I am in a whole different league. Not only is the on road handling better, but the comfort level on the trails is fantastic. The suspension does the work and I'm not tossed around like a dog toy. It's all about compromise when building our rigs. There is give and take to every change we make. Lowering the roll center of the Jeep made the ride incredible. However, now I get to scrape the long arms on the rocks. See, give and take.

Travel is ultimately limited by shock selection and placement within the suspension system. We only get with the shock will allow. In my case the shocks have about 10.2" of travel. Regardless of what I do, that's all I get. Currently up travel is a little less than 4". Slightly less in the rear. The springs are fully seated at full droop. The future will be to get longer travel shocks....possibly coil overs.

RK already provided a solution to the arms hitting the body mount. I am to swap out the stock hex head bolt for a more low profile rounded allen head bolt. This will net about 3/8" of clearance at the bolt and about 1 1/4" more up travel at the end of the upper link. This will solve the problem for sure because I will hit bump stop in about 3/4".

TheDirtman

Less then 4" of up travel in the rear is odd as the stock is around 4.2" and with a 3.5" lift and flat fenders you should have the room for 6"+ of up travel. I looked for a compressed length for those shocks but did find any listed lengths. Maybe those shocks have a long compressed length as you can generally run 12" travel shocks at 4" of lift.