Jahamm88

My group of guys I wheel with are having a bit of debate and I thought it might be of interest to bring into this forum.

What is better When lifting, buy a complete kit that is "designed as a system"? Or choose your components individually based on individual component design that still play nice together to net out a more complete package.

My intent is not to start a X brand Vs Y brand discussion (there are a million out there) but open a discussion about the two different build processes

I am in the belief of the latter- I had a Hard time finding a "complete" kit that only had what was needed and had every individual piece designed to my liking

The one dude drinks the the AEV coolaid hard (not that they offer a bad product, it's really nice stuff) saying it all works as an "engineered system" and I'm the butt of jokes with my frankenlift, a combination of Fox, RK, moog Metalcloak, and Teraflex bits with a system that for all intensive purposes does the same thing with less fancy bent metal pieces and for sure without the name attached.

Thoughts??

smittycm

I'm with you. I ended up buying a single "complete" kit, but only because of the position I'm in (long story). If I had a chance to do it my way, I would have pieced together my own kit. I liked certain components from different manufacturers. For example, I like the Synergy arms because they run Johnny Joints and I like the pinch bolt design vs. the jam nut found on other arms. I didn't care for their springs based on reviews I read, preferred either Metalcloak or EVO for springs. For bumpstops, nothing much to them and preferred the price point of Teraflex over other options. Of course lots of options for shocks, which are usually found separate anyways, but not in all cases. Just some examples. I had my lift all pieced out and ended up with 3-4 manufacturers that I was gonna throw together.

Rednroll

I'm going to make your debate worse and say you're both right and you're both wrong "in my opinion". I'm going to add a 3rd option where I feel a combination of both is the best approach.

Ok, so let me further explain by using both of your debated examples but I'm going to take the pluses of both and then combine them together.

Start with your buddy who drinks the AEV Koolaid. I can drink some of that where what I feel the plus with an AEV is taking the combo springs and shocks. With the AEV kit, they took the effort of tuning the shocks to best match the spring rates to provide the best on road ride quality. Sure you could go the Frankenstein approach and get some OME springs and then get some custom valved shocks or some Rancho adjustable rate shocks, but who wants to take the effort to do all that if you don't have to if someone has already done that for you and combined them in a kit for you? I say let the experts be the experts in spring/shock tuning. They know the specs of their springs to best match the tuning of the shocks.

Then after that, what is left to complete a lift kit?
- Control arms/Geo Brackets
- Sway Bar Links
- Bump Stops
- Track bars
- Track bar bracket
- Brake Lines/Brake line relocation brackets
- Possibly Drive Shafts? where the only kit that I know of that includes one are the Mopar kits

Well, then I'll start going through those items where I want to take the Frankenstein approach. I don't want AEV control arms. I want control arms that are fully adjustable and come with the best maintenance free joints where I'm leaning towards Metal Cloak or the TeraFlex Alpines. The same thing with my track bars. I personally prefer the TF monster TBs. Geo brackets? I don't want the AEV brackets, I want the Rancho fully welded one piece solid brackets. Sway bar links? Nothing fancy there but I definitely want some easy to function quick disconnects on the front where I'm leaning toward JKS or even Steinjegers. Bump Stops? Yeah, give me the kit bump stops, they took the time to measure them to be the correct height so I don't have to which makes things simple. TB riser bracket? Yeah, give me the kit they measured that for me and I'll fine tune it with my adjustable Franken TB, that's simple enough. Drive shafts? I'll take the Tom Woods or Adams options.

So I'll take the <insert brand name kit>+Franken lift combo.

The only thing special about an off the shelf kit are the shock/spring tuning convenience capability in my opinion. No kit out there is 100% complete anyways. MetalCloaks are close to being the most complete and would be my preferred kit, if price wasn't a concern. AEV, MetalCloak etc, don't make drive shafts or provide them in their kits, so I'm going Frankenstein there anyways.

I went with the Mopar 2in lift w/o Drive Shaft because it included all the crap I wanted (Linear rate Springs that don't sag or rust out, with Fox 2.0 Performance series shocks which were tuned to match those springs, a rear TB riser bracket and bump stops) and didn't include any of the other crap I didn't want from them, where I'm adding those parts per my preferences. So far I'm happy and have no regrets and would do it exactly the same way if I were to do it again.....unless I decided to go with a long arm and coil over system.

63expert

resharp001

I'm right there with you with my Frankenlift, and the idea of building with thought put in to each component, what I needed from it, price, etc. I think for MOST people a "complete kit" is usually better, cuz they don't really think through what components they need, and WHY they need em. Although some come close, I don't think that any one manufacture does everything perfectly. I'd rather pick and choose. I think most people get sucked in too thinking they're getting a huge discount when buying everything together in a kit......but more often than not that savings is much smaller than one would imagine. Usually you end up with some wasted parts or whatnot that eat up that savings......for example, buying the shocks with a kit and then figuring out you'd like longer shocks.

I have a friend that bought an AEV jeep. LOL, he drank the Kool-Aid too. I don't think they're bad at all, but I don't think they are worth the premium mainly cuz they reuse factory components. Like, why include a raised bracket for sway bar links rather than just new longer sway bar links....ugh. I always gave him shit about his fancy AEV TB and the likes. He got in to it with me about the AEV CA brackets and reusing the factory control arms and how the axle rotation over bumps and whatnot were optimal that way rather than using aftermarket arms. I finally told him to STFU.....and asked if he wanted that jeep to perform off road in the rocks or take on the city potholes. LOL...cuz if he wanted to keep up with me he was gonna need to think about that. He's pretty much rebuilt a lot of his jeep.....but I tell him not to feel bad, he's got those pretty AEV stickers and stitching to show for all that money. All kidding aside, again, I don't think AEV is bad at all (maybe just a little overpriced).....nor is buying a full kit for most people. It's always an interesting debate.....with no right or wrong answer really.

Rock Krawler Suspension

There is nothing wrong with a franken-lift. Choose products that fill your needs and fit the budget.

Adam C

TheDirtman

There are several threads on kits vs piecing together. Either is fine and some companies and kits are way different then others. Buying based on cost and marketing hype are the biggest mistakes I see people make. Knowing what a lift actually does and how each component reacts to a change in height is the real important part. In reality almost every short arm or long arm kit out there degrades the performance of the factory suspension while most people think a new lift actually improves things.

BoraBora

Piece it together. Different manufacturers/brands have their strong suits and "meh" products. BTW Synergy arms don't use Johnny Joints, they use their own DDB bushings.

Rednroll

There is no right or wrong answer thus why a debate even exists. "Budget" and also "Time/Effort" are key factors in each individual's preference in deciding what is best for them.

I'm an audio system connoisseur and if you think there are debates with the best approach to a suspension lift, I dare you to jump into an audio system discussion and get into some of those debates. They're never ending where people are ready to jump into fist fights.

What's ironic to me now that I look back. The 1st thing I did to my JK is plan out and work on improving the audio system. It's what I do, it's what I know best. On that front, there's always a debate of buying a vehicle with an included premium audio system, or building your own system with all the individual preferred pieces and parts from various brand names, or making further mods to an OEM factory premium system. My audio system was planned out by using what I considered to be a of best of both worlds approach of combining OEM and aftermarket parts, where the ironic thing to me is that the more I learned about suspension systems and what the purpose of each component, learning how each component impacts the system and the reason it was needed, that's how I ended up building my lift/suspension as well. It's odd to me how it happened that way since I definitely didn't make a conscience effort in doing it that way.

Here's my audio system which is an integration of combining pieces of the OEM premium audio system with aftermarket pieces and parts. The key to all this along with suspension lifts is that they are both a combined "system" and then taking the time to learn what each part of the system does and more importantly, being open minded enough to take into consideration the pluses and minuses of each and then realizing there is always going to be room for improvement no matter what you decide to do which all comes back to "budget, time, and effort.". At least that's my perspective. I'm happy with my suspension system and my audio system, but there's always room for improvement on both.

Dzldust