I have a 4" rough country lift kit installed on my jku and have decided it's too much lift with the winds in South Dakota, driving on the interstate is a huge pain. Thinking of going to 2.5" rubicon express coils, however I have 4" lift size rancho shocks. Will I run into problems running this pair? Or should I not be worried about it, primarily on road driving.

 

Lol, second thread today asking the same question...

Yes, the shocks will be too long. For normal driving, they will always be compressed, so when you hit a bump/dip they will bottom out - and eventually blow out. To keep them from bottoming out, you need to add more bumpstop. Since you are going down to a 2.5" coil, you may not have enough room to add enough bumpstop (they will constantly be contacting each other, and you may as well not have the coils/shocks). If you want to keep those longer shocks, look at a relo kit that raises the upper shock mount.

in addition, the caster will change. (adj arms?) The pinion angles will change. (Adj arms again). The axles will shift to the side. (adj trackbars/brackets?) I assume you have a drop pitman and trackbar drop bracket up front? No idea if they will interfere with the lower height, but you might want to go back to the stock pitman and remove the bracket.

 

Yes I have the track bar bracket, so you are suggesting I remove that? Also, I have a drag link flip kit, of course I can just "flip" that over again and return it to stock location. Also I do have the stock pitman arm, and for control arms I have stock w/ rc relocation brackets. As far as shock relocation mounts I have never seen any that work for making the top mount higher, any suggestions for what I search for? Thanks.

 

You say you have 4" size Rancho shocks. Do you mean you have the 331 in front and 332 in rear?

If your bump stops work for your tire size and shock travel now then I don't see what difference lowering your Jeep 1.5 inches will have on your bump stops other than to reduce your up-travel by 1.5 inches. Your existing bump stops are already protecting your shocks from over compression.

On the other hand, you will suffer from over extension. I'm not saying your shocks will be over extended. I'm saying your springs will be. Shorter springs with long travel shocks will make your springs pop out of their seats and make for a bad day. A number of companies make devices to keep your springs attached including clips that fit through the coils to chains that limit axle down travel. Either should work. Many recommend them anyway so your shocks aren't what's limiting down-travel.

One more thing... your stabilizer bar brackets might need to be modified too.

 

I read the 4" RC, and not the specific shocks. Just assumed you had the rc shocks with the little integrated bumpstops and the drop pitman/drop trackbar bracket they use.

Most of the draglink flips require 3" bumpstops to keep the bracket off the frame (which i assume you do have?) Do some measuring with the new coils, then decide if you want to remove the flip.

Synergy is the only shock relo I paid any attention to, since I have all of their steering components. Don't know who else might have them.
SYNERGY MANUFACTURING :: Jeep JK :: Synergy Jeep JK Rear Long Travel Upper Shock Mount

 

I run the 330's and the 331's on mine with 2.5" of bumpstop all the way around, and the shock mounts have been raised a few inches in the rear. You may be able to get away with the 332's in the rear if you shock brackets are untouched.

Shocks don't bottom out, but the front coils do unseat during droop with my 2.5 coils.

 

D_engel do those bump stops make for a rough ride? Not running any bump stops currently, never really ran into any issues without running them.. Also they are the 330 and 331s I just checked. Sorry these may be noob questions

 

My bumpstops rarely make any sort of contact under normal driving conditions. 2.5" lift kits come with the same bumpstops and I haven't really heard of many people complaining about bottoming out frequently.

The fact that you don't run any bumpstop with these shocks currently concerns me a bit though.. If you've wheeled that setup, its likely you've bottomed out the shocks, potentially causing damage to them.

 

Ah, yes I have probably bottomed them out. I seldom wheel though so I'm guessing not a ton of damage has been done **fingers crossed** no idea why they were not installed in the first place. Lucky I'm changing things up a bit though! So with these bump stops in place along with 330 and 331's you have not had any problems under normal driving conditions with shocks in the stock location?

 

The RC lift originally came with RC shocks? They use little integrated bumpstops on the shock body, not external bumpstops like all other lift mfg's. Swapping to a different shock, you no longer had any bumpstop.