Am thinking of buying a new jeep and putting 37" on it, with a lift kit etc... I was wondering should I buy a rubicon and upgrade it to run 37", or buy a sport and upgrade that one. Is there a big cost difference to get me to the same point? I would probably have about 15k extra so either 10k towards buying the rubi and 5k upgrades or 15k extra for the sport. It would an unlimited, and an automatic. Also I would need pay someone to install all the mods.

 

Depends on what you plan to do with your jeep. If it is just driving around as a daily driver then either should do the trick. Then again a DD shouldn't need 37's.

 

What are you planning on doing with the Jeep? The mods are going to cost the same either way. Lift kit, tires, wheels, etc. prices don't change if you have a Rubicon or a sport. Just based on the budget your playing with I would say go with the sport. Once you get 37's, wheels and a lift your 5k will pretty much be shot.

 

The only thing off of a Rubicon that I would really like to have is the t-case.

Instead of dumping money into the stock axles, you can go aftermarket and end up with a better setup for the money. Just depends on your use/needs, and how much effort you want to go to getting it all together.

Start checking prices with dynatrac/currie/teraflex/G2/whoever else, and see what you come up with.

 

I defiantly will take it off-roading, some rock crawling. Not dd probably weekly driver. I just was trying to figure out if the cost is about the same or if one is a lot cheaper.

I was looking at EMU lift not sure if 2.5" is enough, aev wheels, nitto mud grapplers, want auto disconnects of some kind, fender flares. wasn't sure if the d44 are ok, and the 4.10 on the rubi is ok. With the sport I really would need to replace both of those. Just trying to get a ballpark of cost before I pull the trigger on one or the other.

Also looking for advice on those who have gone the sport upgrade route vs rubi upgrade route, any gotchas or unforeseen expenses, or I am glad I chose sport or rubi one because, xyz.

Thanks for the input I appreciate it.

 

Anything can break, 37's and the dana 44 will be hit and miss depending on the DRIVER and the trails you are going to do. If you are really rock crawling 4.10 gears are not going to cut it with 37's. A 2.5" lift will typically give you more then advertised lift and when combined with flat fenders and proper back spacing is plenty to run 37" tires. AEV wheels do not have enough back spacing for a 37"x12.5" tire. You need to be down to the 3"-3.5" range depending on the travel of your suspension. Mud grapplers are a heavy tire and will affect both the stress on the axles and performance (gearing).

There is 1000 different ways to spend money on your jeep and it will vary from owner to owner, location and type of trails, and the ability of the owner to fab and install parts and components. If you have no skills and are paying someone to build the jeep you can easily expect to spend $35k+ on the jeep to make it bulletproof on 37's. If you can build axles, weld, and install parts you can buy a sport and for $15-20k build a pretty sweet crawler. I know a guy truck that was just built with a suspension and axles on that is in the $70k+ range and took over a year to build.

You can look around on these forums at some of the cool rigs with motor and axle swaps and think cool I want that. You don't see that some of the rigs are pushing $100k+ in total costs.

People on these forums don't know you or what trails or how you drive your jeep which will have a lot to do with how you set it up. Do you wheel in parks or are you 50 miles out in the desert with no phone service should you snap an axle?

 

I don't mean this to sound mean so please don't take it that way. I am honestly trying to save you time and money. That being said just judging by your posts on this thread I'm not certain that you have any idea of what you want other than a big jeep. Having built my jeep that I daily drive on 37's I can tell you that you should have a very clear idea of exactly which parts you plan on using before you ever buy your jeep. You say you want to have "some kind" disconnect for your sway bar. That simple statement right there speaks volumes I think. Do you want an electronic disconnect? If so that means you have 2 options 1) Buy a Rubicon 2) Buy the sport then install the Rubicon sway bar system and needed harness then go to the dealer and have the computer flashed so that it works properly. Do you want a mechanical disconnect? Then you could be looking at something as simple as a set of quick disconnects or something like Teraflex Dual rate swaybar. The price difference between the 2 is like $600 or $700. This is just for "some kind" of way to disconnect your sway bar! Do you see what I'm getting at here? Do yourself a favor sit down and write out on paper a realistic plan of what this Jeep is going to do. If its your daily driver that's fine but its going to be built differently from something that your not driving every day. Do want the Jeep to be able to go on any trail you point it at or are you okay just doing fire roads and easy to moderate trails? If you are buying a new Jeep are you worried about your warranty staying intact? Once you have an idea of what you want out of the Jeep then figure out what it is going to take to make that happen. You may find out that based on what you want it to do that you could be just fine with 35's. If you find that 37's are required then do some research on here, being as this has been covered multiple times, and figure out what parts you will need to make that happen. Then figure out where you want to get those parts from and get a quote to install the stuff. Once you have all of that you will have a really good idea of 1) What sort of money you will need to build your Jeep and 2) Based on the money needed for mods which Jeep you can afford to purchase as your build platform. Trust me do that and you will save yourself all sorts of time, money and headaches. Best of luck with your plan

 

I don't mind the honesty. When I said auto disconnects I meant electronic disconnects sorry if that was confusing.

I was just trying to get a ball park cost difference on people who have built both the sport and rubicon, and wanted to know if I spent 15k on a sport, or 5k on a rubicon upgrades would that be sufficient to run 37" with moderate rock crawling abilty. Is that reasonable or am I way off. I get that people can spend 100k. I just want to avoid spending 5k only to find out I will need to spend another 5k to finish it. Also I want to just go from stock to 37" I don't want to go 35 then 37. I have read the pages that talk about what is required to upgrade but there are no costs associated with parts. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

The e-disco is the big feature talking you in to spending the extra 10k? Really? And not the t-case or lockers?

The axle housings are basically the same between the rubi and the sport (other than a larger/different center sections to fit the d44 gears/lockers.) Same overall length, tube diameter, tube thickness, they even use the same C's/hubs/brakes. So any and all external strength mods you would want for the d30 housing, guess what? You are putting them on the rubi also.

The rubi axles are better internally. The front has the d44 gearset, which is a big improvement over the d30. Slightly thicker inner axle shafts, 30spline on the front d44 vs 27spline on the d30, but they both use the same 32spline outer shafts. The rubi rear 44 has 32spline shafts vs 30spline in the sport rear 44. And of course the rubi axles will have the electronic lockers.
(someone else on here has indicated that newer models are coming with stronger shafts, but I have not seen any verification of what the differences may be?)

Also, for the newest years, Rubicons now have the option of 4.10's -or- 3.73's. There have been a few very upset people on here who found that out the hard way. Pretty much a non-issue though, since you will most likely be regearing for the 37's anyway.

 

Okay you definitely need to do more research. But in short there is no way that you are going to put 37's on a JK for $5000. Look just some quick math here. Those 37 inch Nittos your looking at are roughly $400 a pop. So lets multiply by 5. There's $2000 and you haven't even paid tax, shipping or install. Now lets assume a 3.5 inch lift. Lets say you go with the RK 3.5 inch mid arm flex system which is roughly $1300 that again doesn't include tax, shipping or install. It also doesn't include shocks. So lets assume another $400 for shocks just to make the math easy. That's $3700 and we haven't even shipped anything or installed it yet. Where in CA are you? Honestly I would be more than happy to sit down and have a beer with you and talk this out if you wanted. It would also give you a chance to see mine which is on 37's and is daily driven.