Well, this weekend I learned that I'm an idiot. OK, really, I knew that already; I mean; it's pretty obvious and I'm not a complete idi...uh.
Anyway, I was looking through the threads in the TJ Resources (something I would strongly suggest to everyone!) and ran across the How can I tell how much lift my Jeep Wrangler TJ has? thread. I had seen this thread, or something very much like it, a couple of years ago when I had my 2001, but decided to check my current TJ against the info contained therein. Much to my surprise, what I had been thinking (and telling everyone) was the lift on my TJ was just flat-ass wrong! And, as everyone knows, there is nothing wronger than flat-ass wrong! Oh, the shame . I have been saying that I had a 6" of suspension lift when, in fact, I have right at 4.5" (average - front and rear) of lift! I double-verified this by peering at the very degraded and barely decipherable part numbers printed on my Currie springs and looking them up to find that they are, in fact, 4" lift springs. Combine that with the leveling spacers and we have about 4.5" average.
Soooo, now I am stuck on the horns of a conundrum (or cunnunded on the horns of a stuckrum...never sure 'bout that), because I have a tummy tuck (TerraFlex) that is not quite "fully tucked" due to the fact that I have no body lift and, if I tuck it all the way up, the tranny makes more than casual contact with the body. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it makes full-on porno-style deep-in XXX contact with the body. Even with a 1/2" TC drop spacer, it still does a bit more than just "touchy feely". So now, I want to make it all good and get the max out of the possible tucks of the tummy but really, don't want to add to my lift any more than is necessary.
I've done the measurements and the math to determine that, as much as I want it to work, a 1/2" body lift just won't quite do it and I will have to go the Full Monty with a 1" BL to make it fly. Or...I could go with a 1/2" TC drop spacer and a 1/2" body lift and be OK (maybe a bit less OK than the 1" BL) and keep the lift as low as possible but loose out on 1/2" of tummy tuckage/break-over angle.
I'm tossed here. If I were running 35 or 37 inch tires, it would be a no brainer (right up my alley), I'd go for the 1" BL. But I'm currently sporting 33's, and will be for a while as I have a brand new set of 33" Micky Thompson MTZ-P3's waiting to go on; so a total of 5.5" of lift may look a bit "overkill". Yes, I know that the 1" increase in lift is mostly about looks and will not substantially affect my ride/performance, but, quoting Billy Crystal, "it's not how you feel, it's how you rook" and I don't want to rook like a total dweeb. I will almost certainly go for 35" tires in the future but, that's...uhm...in the future, and I don't want to screw myself out of desirable benefits now, simply because I don't want to look like a dork (too late) with a "well lifted" TJ on measly 33" tires while, simultaneously, I don't want to look like a complete dork (yep, again, too late) looking toward a, yet-to-be-fulfilled future.
So I ask, what do you think? Anyone out there running 4"-ish suspension lift with a 1" body lift and 33" tires?
I'm not judging here but I think you could have a better "touchy feely" if you made this long-ass (not flat-ass) post the beginning of your own thread. No matter where your post is, all I can offer as a suggestion is to sell those brand new 33" Micky Thompson MTZ-P3's and use that money to buy 35"s. I say this because I don't want you to rook like a total dweeb now and I certainly don't want you to feel like a total dweeb in the semi near future spending time and money to rebuild to get from those 33s to the 35s.