Uni-ball UCA's... you read that right!

[Matt]

Matt any reason why your going from RRO to JBA?

The simple explanation is OCD. I plan on running 5-6" lift and doing some serious wheeling and the kj bushings just don't sit right with me for an xk thats looking to take some serious abuse.

[07JeepXK]

Makes sense, coming from another person with OCD. I have the old version of the JBA's that were designed around their coilover assembly. I'd like to swap them out someday for their new version.

[Matt]

I hear ya.

That ties into the other design recommendation I made for the AM arms.... they say there's 1/8" of clearance at the coil which I dont believe is enough (especially if they fix the cup angle and squeak out a bit more travel).

So I recommended getting more clearance by moving the welds further outboard like so:

[AmericanMotorsports]

So I finally can post here on the forum. Im glad you guys are giving us feed back on our new arms that were just placed on a Wk with a 4 in HD EME coils placed on the struts. The customer was having serious issues with the stock arm causing the spindle to rub on the coil isolator preventing anymore down travel. The customer was sick of it squeaking too. We were able to move the arm out away from the spindle and place a uniball in place of the typical balljoint. We found we were able to get almost 2 in of extra down travel. Matt had some really good ideas to maximize the space around the strut. We will be looking into what can be done to improve the arms. PM me for pricing, I need to get approval before posting up pricing. They are more than the JBA arms just FYI. The arms are build with offroading in mine and made from 1/8 4130 Chromoly Plate. The arms are water jet and CNC bent to maintain proper fitment. 2 uniballs with high misalignments, 4 urethane bushing assemblies and a machined tapered spindle adaptor is included with each set.

Let me know if anyone is interested in doing a long travel kit or mid travel kit for the WK.

[Matt]

Welcome! And glad you're able to finally join in the convo!

Looks like your customer is running a daystar spacer in addition to his OME HD spring. So it definitely makes sense that his spindle was hitting the perch... if he was a member here we could have warned him ahead of time*

Do you think you guys will incorporate any of my recommendations? I plan on rebuilding my suspension at the end of December when I have a lot of vacation time that I need to use.... I wouldn't mind testing the prototypes that incorporate my ideas. I'd be happy to beat them up a bit offroad as well!

Would like to hear more about long-travel ideas. Kyle's 2wd.... and a bit crazy like the rest of us.... sounds like a match made in heaven!

[Matt]

The customer was having serious issues with the stock arm causing the spindle to rub on the coil isolator preventing anymore down travel. The customer was sick of it squeaking too.

[AM... do you have a first name?]

I was thinking about this on my way home tonight and, well, forget everything we've been talking about so far.... i think there's another issue here.

When I first saw the pictures you sent I thought your customer only had a daystar lift. I didn't realize he also had the OME HD coils for a "stacked" lift. His issue with the spindle rubbing the isolator with the stock arms is a product of his lift method that is avoided like the plague amongst XK/WK owners (same suspension btw). Kyle (oleblue27) can vouch for this... he tried a similar setup against mine and 07JeepXK's recommendation... and ended up ordering the 4" superlift within a month or so!

With that said, you solved your customers problem by moving the spindle further away from the strut, right? The problem here is that for the majority of properly lifted WK/XKs, your method of solving your customers problem is counter-productive to the design we need to get our alignment in spec.

Due to a lack of camber adjustment in the LCA, our aftermarket arms are designed to add some negative camber to help get our alignments within spec. Your arms effectively added some positive camber, correct? (because negative would have pulled the spindle into the strut)

Below is a picture of a stock arm and two pictures of aftermarket arms that members use that produce good alignment specs....

STOCk:


RRO:


JBA New Design:



Do you have another set of arms made already? I'll be tearing apart my suspension the weekend after Thanksgiving to replace a lower balljoint (the boot got torn). If you send me an arm and a return label I'll throw it on, take some measurements/pictures/etc and then send it back to you.