I agree that it would be nice to have a longer, tunable shock that fits in the factory rear location. I don’t think anyone is arguing against the effectiveness of outboarding, it’s just that the amount of people that can actually do it properly is very few.
I won’t argue that one bit. I’ve seen more than a fair share of shops fuck up the outboard install. Hell, bad it happen to me on my last TJ.
I wouldn't. If I could get a bolt in tunable remote reservoir shock with 11" of travel for the front, I'd be hard pressed to ever cut up another stock shock mount.
Being in the middle of doing the front on mine, I would agree. It's much more work than the rear end is.
Yesterday you were agreeing with Chris that it was silly not to fit 12” shocks. Why the change of heart?
Diminishing returns. You aren't going to get much more than 5.5" of uptravel. The rest of any perceived benefit will be 1" more down travel. It takes twice as much work to get a cut down 12 in there as it does an 11. Even more for a standard 12.
I think there was just some confusion on front vs rear outboarding. Rear outboarding makes sense. Front mounts are fine if we could find a tunable shock to fit.
When I reread this thread it was obvious you and Chris were talking about rear and I was only talking fronts. Makes sense now.
Yes and no. What takes up a lot of the room we need is the stem mount. You have a cup washer, rubber isolator, overly deep cap to handle the stud length, and a different shape on the top cap that eat up shock travel. The shock builders do not have an eye on maximizing travel, they just want what is easy and won't compromise travel too much.
