To throw in my2 cents, and I am by no means an expert, AEV has very good ride qualites my all accounts, but my opinion is that it is too expensive for what you get. As has been said, for a few hundred more you can get the full traction ultimate kits.

I spoke with Dave at Northridge today, and what I have decided to get is the Northridge Old Man Emu Long Travel JK Lift Kit. The package comes with HD springs, long travel gas shocks, adjustable front and rear traction bars, adjustable front and rear sway bar links, extended brake lines, bump stop extentions, and adjustable front lower control arms.

That seems to be the perfect package for my needs

 

Ive done a ton of searching and as much as I hate to break in steps here is the build:

AEV 4.5 premium
AEV Pintlers
37" MTR kevlar
AEV premium front bumper
Warn m8000
5.13 gears

Prob a smittybilt rear bumper/tire carrier

Ill do wheels, tires, lift, and gears at the same time (soon). Then I'll worry about the bumpers and winch.

Most of my off roading will be mountain roads, snow trails, expedition driving. I dont play in the mud and not too fond of rocks after a land rover incident I had.

 

Don't forget some c gussets. Cheap insurance from bending with big tires. If you don't want to do any cutting mods, I would buy the Teraflex gussets since they fit in the middle of the C's unlike ORE gussets which fit onto outer edge of the C's. That way they fit perfectly with the high steer kit parts.

 

--Edit-- I actually have not had the time to read the entire thread but here is a few things below

Well I just had a long reply typed out and the phone rang and I closed it on accident .

Bottom line the AEV kit is a very nice kit. In my opinion one of the best riding kits available. Is it for everybody no. Is it for the 90% Daily driver occasional weekend warrior yes.

It comes with everything you need except wheels and tires. Is it expensive - well its not cheap.but I dont think it is overpriced. Its made in america and is probably the most engineered 3" lift on the market.

I like the Fact that nothing is adjustable and it works great right out of the box. For the novice installer it makes the install very easy. No measurments to be made nothing that you can screw up.

I liek the drop down brackets 1000x better than cam bolts , but the drop down brackets are not for everybody if you wheel it hard and in the rocks get some front adjustable arms.

The OME 3" Long travel kit and The AEV 3.5" kit all have there place and customer but I think the two customers are different if that makes any sense.

I am probably not making much sense I am typing between phone calls

If you have any questions please feel free to give us a call.

Thanks
David

 

and, that's exactly what i had been saying all along. it's a great kit that works really well and for people who spend most of their time on pavement, they would love it. but, is it "worth the money" - in my opinion, no.

but, aside from coils and shocks, all you're really paying for is a set of brackets and unless they are made of gold, i personally feel that the price for them is too much. nobody is questioning whether or not they work, just that you're getting very little physical product for the cost. now, if they were priced more reasonably, i don't think anyone would bat an eye, including me.

and i might add, aev and their fanbase used to defend the use of cam bolts to no end and attack me for questioning their use all the time. of course, in the end, i was right, they were wrong and they came out with a better solution.

i will say one thing about aev, they do an outstanding job of marketing and if they can get people to enthusiastically pay as much as they do for a set of brackets, more power to them for knowing how to make an easy buck.

 

really worth the money, love the quality and support.

 

check it out, you can get the off road evolution track bar relocation bracket/drag link flip kit and it does everything the aev steering correction does and for only $299. in other words, for about the same price as an aev kit, you can get the northridge4x4 OME kit and have the exact same handling as the aev kit AND, have real heavy duty adjustable track bars and adjustable heavy duty front lower control arms instead of a just a set of non-adjustable brackets.

 

To be fair to AEV they seen to have a lot of time invested in the design of the kit. Otherwise it would not handle as well as it does on the pavement. That R&D time costs a TON of money and that is most likely what you are paying the "inflated" price for. I deal with it in my industry all the time. We sell the customer a product for $10k and there MIGHT be about $1000 - $1500 of material cost in the price. The customer realizes this and gets pissed and claims we are ripping them off. Then you have to explain to them that the rest of the money is in the manpower that it took to design and set up that $1500 worth of material.

This is the same with any lift kit. If you gave me the measurements off all the pieces of any lift kit on the market I could make you the exact same thing in my shop for probably 1/4 of the price that you purchased it for. There's a lot more in the price then just the material.

 

to be fair, all we're talking about is suspension geometry here and there is a well known and understood science to it - it's not like they reinvented the wheel or came up with a cure for cancer. while aev has done a better job of marketing their product and convincing people that they're the only ones to address things like roll center, other suspension companies have as well and some have even developed very similar if not identical solutions. as far as their control arm brackets go, let's remember that they only came out with them recently and only after taking so much heat for using cheap cam bolts to address the issue of caster. and, for whatever it's worth, rancho actually came out with this solution first. sure, aev modified the design a bit to have slightly better braking characteristics but, in both cases, they still come at the cost of making your control arms and mounts rock targets - something most suspension manufacturers see as a problem and prefer not to do. in the end, all the suspension companies out there already know what they need to do and really, the only thing aev did was make brackets to do it and in all fairness, market them well. again, they work great but, are they "worth the money?" in my opinion, no.

 

You will love this set up! Good luck and post some photo's!