OP
OK finished relocating and installing the Savvy Under Armor, and recreating the air pumps this weekend, also installed my new Front and rear drive shafts.
Here's a photo of the skid and jeep now. The extra clearance gain really is crazy.
So now for a mini review.
Pros:
- Obviously the increased clearance in awesome
- Separate crossmember is nice to be able to remove the skid without supporting the engine, I imagine this will be really nice if a I ever need to repair or diagnose a hard problem in those areas while on the trail.
- Stiffer transmission bushings have improved the feeling of the shifter, before I felt I could feel the tranny moving around while shifting witch added to the slop of the shifting.
Cons:
- Increased shifting height inside to where my hand slightly touches AC controls while shifting (probably can live with this one just have to get used to it, or get a new shift now/bend shifter)
.
- Increase noise while driving, this was one of my bigger concerns but it is only a very small increase so am actually fine with this. ( If the overall noise of the jeep ever starts to bother me I will add sound deadening under the carpet)
- Vibration while idling, this one is a bit more serious and I think people considering this system for a daily driver should find someone with the skid to see if it is worth it to them. There is no rattling going on, I have made clearance at all metal to metal contact I could find. But there is an increase in vibration when stopped that I was expecting. The same bushings that provide the improved shifting feel increase vibration at idle, not enough to make your mirror shake or anything but it is noticeable from before. I don't do much stop and go with this so I think I will get used to and forgot about this. However if you do a lot of stop and go I would really do your research before buying this system.
-Increased driveline angles and the difficulty that those cause, harder to dial pinion angle reduced caster. (see below for ongoing trouble shooting of that)
Those are the main pros and cons and my thoughts on them.
In regards to my current driveline angle and vibration problems. After the initial install I set the pinion angle and had quite bad vibrations. when I got home all my angle measurements had changed. I believe that I had to do so much adjustment that I was not getting accurate readings without driving the jeep in between. So I re-did the front and rear pinion angles and vibration has improved greatly but is still there at about 65-70mph. more work is needed here.
Other small problems I ran into is I had to relocate the fan shroud lower, and am going to have to have the exhaust slight modified because it is very close to the track bar and the suspension won't be able to droop in its current state.
My biggest concern and the one that has me questioning if I will be able to keep the system or not is the Caster. I have to have it checked at an alignment shop after getting the vibrations to go away, I need to check my whole alignment because after adjusting everything now my steering is off center so it is possible my toe has changed adding to the feeling. But basically the Jeep currently feels very floaty on the freeway compared to before. I could drive 75 and it felt rock solid now it feels floaty. However the return to center seems good when doing U-turns.
In summary my current concern is that in order to get the driveline vibes to go away I will have to remove too much caster to retain the enjoyable driving experience this jeep has had before.
@jjvw @tomtaylz @Chris
Were you guys able to achieve adequate Caster and alignment after your tummy tucks with 4" of lift?
I realize I have a bit of trouble shooting to do but to hear that yours is fine would make me feel better =-)
Here's a photo of the skid and jeep now. The extra clearance gain really is crazy.
So now for a mini review.
Pros:
- Obviously the increased clearance in awesome
- Separate crossmember is nice to be able to remove the skid without supporting the engine, I imagine this will be really nice if a I ever need to repair or diagnose a hard problem in those areas while on the trail.
- Stiffer transmission bushings have improved the feeling of the shifter, before I felt I could feel the tranny moving around while shifting witch added to the slop of the shifting.
Cons:
- Increased shifting height inside to where my hand slightly touches AC controls while shifting (probably can live with this one just have to get used to it, or get a new shift now/bend shifter)
.
- Increase noise while driving, this was one of my bigger concerns but it is only a very small increase so am actually fine with this. ( If the overall noise of the jeep ever starts to bother me I will add sound deadening under the carpet)
- Vibration while idling, this one is a bit more serious and I think people considering this system for a daily driver should find someone with the skid to see if it is worth it to them. There is no rattling going on, I have made clearance at all metal to metal contact I could find. But there is an increase in vibration when stopped that I was expecting. The same bushings that provide the improved shifting feel increase vibration at idle, not enough to make your mirror shake or anything but it is noticeable from before. I don't do much stop and go with this so I think I will get used to and forgot about this. However if you do a lot of stop and go I would really do your research before buying this system.
-Increased driveline angles and the difficulty that those cause, harder to dial pinion angle reduced caster. (see below for ongoing trouble shooting of that)
Those are the main pros and cons and my thoughts on them.
In regards to my current driveline angle and vibration problems. After the initial install I set the pinion angle and had quite bad vibrations. when I got home all my angle measurements had changed. I believe that I had to do so much adjustment that I was not getting accurate readings without driving the jeep in between. So I re-did the front and rear pinion angles and vibration has improved greatly but is still there at about 65-70mph. more work is needed here.
Other small problems I ran into is I had to relocate the fan shroud lower, and am going to have to have the exhaust slight modified because it is very close to the track bar and the suspension won't be able to droop in its current state.
My biggest concern and the one that has me questioning if I will be able to keep the system or not is the Caster. I have to have it checked at an alignment shop after getting the vibrations to go away, I need to check my whole alignment because after adjusting everything now my steering is off center so it is possible my toe has changed adding to the feeling. But basically the Jeep currently feels very floaty on the freeway compared to before. I could drive 75 and it felt rock solid now it feels floaty. However the return to center seems good when doing U-turns.
In summary my current concern is that in order to get the driveline vibes to go away I will have to remove too much caster to retain the enjoyable driving experience this jeep has had before.
@jjvw @tomtaylz @Chris
Were you guys able to achieve adequate Caster and alignment after your tummy tucks with 4" of lift?
I realize I have a bit of trouble shooting to do but to hear that yours is fine would make me feel better =-)
