TECHLINE

JK LONG ARM

Q My friend has a ’17 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited. He’s looking to move up to 35-inch tires and asked my opinion. I told him to look at long-arm kits as they improved the ride on my ’05 LJ, but his shop told him that a short-arm kit will get him a better ride than a long-arm kit. I know it’s only a 2.5-inch lift, but does that jive with you? It sounds suspicious to me.
DAREK CONNOLE
VIA FACEBOOK.COM/JOHNCAPPA4X4

A It’s always interesting when a new-model Jeep Wrangler comes out. Enthusiasts and manufacturers alike initially tend to grasp at the known and develop the same products that were successful on the previous generation’s Wrangler. I’ve been fortunate enough to see this process occur three times for the Wrangler now. Sometimes these ideas work, and sometimes the products are completely unnecessary because of the differences of the vehicles. Long-arm suspension is one of those products. The ’97-’06 Jeep Wrangler came with incredibly short control arms. Pretty much any lift kit more than an inch or two put the control arms at undesirable angles. This offered poor handling and a degraded ride. In answer to this, the aftermarket developed long-arm suspension systems for the TJ and TJ Unlimited (LJ) Wranglers. The longer suspension control arms improved the ride and handling of lifted ’97-’06 Wranglers.

Fast-forward to ’07 with the introduction of the Jeep JK Wrangler: The manufacturers were quick to create long-arm lift kits for the new Jeep. Unfortunately, there