I'm making a conversion between my precious Rough Country kit to a Metalcloak kit. For the rear I have an axle side track bar bracket with the OEM track bar, and for the front I have a Metalcloak adjustable track bar with no raised axle side bracket. My coils are 2.5" Metalcloaks which netted me about 3.25"

I said all of that to ask...
Which setup would give me the better roll center- Raised axle side brackets and OEM track bars front and rear, or front and rear adjustable track bars with no track bar brackets.

Thanks in advance

 

Probably not what you want to hear. But...i did both. The bracket corrects the geometry and the track bar allows you to recenter the axle.

I'd do the bracket if just doing one. I know Teraflex and many others have 2.5 kits with bracket only. I figure that's the most critical. If you need a hand gimme a holler.

 

You want the best set up for roll center? Full traction's crc. It works like the Watts linkage. Necessary? Probably not. Work great? Absolutely!

The bracket simply keeps the stock track bar relatively in it's original position, keeping the axle under the vehicle where it was originally. As soon as the axle travels, it's off center, whether with a bracket or adjustable track bar. Ideally, the adjustable track bar allows you to fine tune this. For example, if you have a rig that weighs 500# more due to accessories and such, you can adjust the track bar to center the axle with that load. If you did a bracket in this scenario, the axle would shift as you added weight. I hope that was clear.

No absolute need to do both however; doing both would reduce the offset of axle under varying loads as it would pose the track bar closer to parallel (never gets parallel) and reduce axle shifting with suspension travel.

The most certain way, full reaction crc.

 

I'm currently without a torque wrench and some other tools so I may take you up on that offer. I think what I'll end up doing is use my OEM track bar with a raised bracket, and sell my adjustable track bar

 

If you're not doing a drag link flip leave the front track bar at the stock height bracket and use the adjustable track bar. If you use a raised bracket in the front but leave the drag link in the stock position you're not improving geometry you're actually making it worse by putting the drag link and track bar at different angles. The rear you can use a stock track bar and a raised bracket.

 

This. ^

I'm also running MetalCloak 2.5" and I raised both along with flipping the drag link, if you go this route you'll have to run 3" bump stops. Handling wise only thing I notice is there's just less body roll in general, I would've been fine with just raising the rear.

 

Yours second scenario would be the best. Leave the front adjsutable and use a raised rear bracket. Try and get the rear as level to the ground as possible to help with roll an minimize axle shift during articulation. You can always add an adjustable rear bar if you want for the extra strength on the rear as long as it can be set at factory length.

 

I run a raised tb bracket, and adj track bar. The rear i run just a dropped bracket. It doesnt seem to bad and i ran this set up with 2.5" of lift. Metal cloak nets higher then 2.5 i think its around 3.25" like you said. So both would be suffice.

 

The above post is poor advise and should not be done as it caused the track bar and drag link to move in different planes and will cause steering issues most notably bump steer.

A raised bracket up front should only be done with a drag link flip which would be for a lift of 3.5"+ and will need added bump stop to keep the drag link from hitting the frame.

 

I have no intentions of a drag link flip anytime soon, however I do have a drop pitman arm installed right now. I've got the OEM pitman arm that I'll be swapping in soon but I am unclear if this is going to help out with the body roll I'm experiencing