If you are not rock crawling you don't need lots of suspension travel or extra lift. Your jeep is more then capable of running most any trail in the stock form. Upgraded tires, lockers, and proper gearing is what is going to make your jeep better off road.

You never answered what you are rubbing on. With 33's and 4.5" bs wheels you should be good to go. If you are rubbing on the fenders at full stuff then you need to add some bump stop to your suspension. Adding addition lift with do nothing to keep you out of the fenders.

 

If you'r not doing much crawling, I would recommend the rancho 2" sport system with your current tires.
It is inexpensive, and the ride is great.

In the past few weeks I have installed a Rancho 2" sport system with non adjustable shocks, Teraflex 2.5(With their shocks), and Rough Country 3.5. Only the RC addressed the front geometry with control arms/raised bracket/pitman arm drop. I personally have OME Springs/Rancho adjustables that also went on in the past month or so.
Next to my OME setup at the softer shock settings, the Rancho had the best/softest ride quality of the group. Suprisingly the RC setup had a fairly nice ride as well, but some of the brackets aren't nearly as nice quality as the Teraflex stuff and I'm against the dropped pitman arm that comes with the RC kit. The Teraflex components were probably the nicest of the group, but the ride was on the stiffer side of what I would like in my daily driver.

 

A Teraflex 2.5" lift with springs and shocks is way under a thousand, depends on which shocks you get. I am looking at the coil lift with shock extensions for around 450. Then saving getting shocks when I can afford them. You could install it easily in a weekend with some basic tools. 4K for an installed Teraflex 2.5" lift seems very high.

 

Yeah the 225 lb weight loss makes the rear act as a 2.25 rear lift, basically retaining the factory rake. $4K for a 2.5 lift? They'll likely throw in a free reach-around for that price. I paid a good local shop specializing in Jeep modifications only 1/10 of that price for install and alignment of my Teraflex 1.5 spacer lift (2" front, 1" rear) and got a noticeable lift

 

just checked it its rubbing on that lower front plastic air dam. What can I use to trim that with the least amount of headache? Last time I trimmed plastic I was a kid and used a hot knife lol

 

awesome thanks for tht info. I will look into that. I hope no one misunderstands when I say I won't be crawling I mean I won't be doing what most would refer to hardcore stuff. I will be doing more than flat trails. I want my jeep to handle the majority of what one may run into on a trail just short of big rock and boulders. Ie for the Cali jeepers, I want to be able to do cleghorn. Some articulation needed but not necessarily rock crawling.

 

the store I got the quote from is known to be pricey. I think he gave me a price in a balls to the wall suspension price.

 

Would the teraflex 1.5 level kit be very capable. Like I said not looking to rock crawl but don't wanna puss out on mild/moderate stuff

 

Yes. Here's mine with bigger 315/70/17 Duratracs

 

Hack saw or sawzal work well. Most people just take that air dam off and pitch it.