Baystate Jeepers

Hello everyone,

My name is Bill and I live in Billerica. I own a 2012 jk unlimited, 6spd. 3.21 gears. There hasn't been much in the upgrade department except for some smitty rocker guards

My girlfriend Brianna and I love to take road trips and the jeep has been great for that. Much of our trips have been centered around visiting National Parks. It was after visiting Arches and Canyonlands in Moab where our real interest in offroading came on.

We do not have a large amount of offroading experience and this is why we mailed our club application a few weeks ago. We are getting married this summer and will be taking our honeymoon/road trip out west to Colorado, Utah, and California to name a few places. We would love to build our experience offroading so we can enjoy some time off the pavement.

The jeep is my daily driver and I put about 250 miles a week on it. Looking to upgrade for capability but not to sacrifice reliability as the miles do rack up.

Was close to pulling the trigger on TF 3 inch lift but I'd appreciate any opinions or ideas.
http://www.quadratec.com/products/16194_011X_PG.htm

Also looking to beef up the wheel and tire combo as I'm approaching 50k on these

Thanks,

Bill and Brianna

Welcome.

Jealous of your cross country honeymoon. Some day when I rack up enough vacation time would love to do it with my wife.

Personally I like the BDS, JKS and Clayton products. I have BDS and JKS stuff on my TJ and they have been great. That is if you are going short arm.

For long arm you can't beat Clayton products IMO. He does have a 3.5" kit but it is about a grand more then the kit you linked. However if the budget is there it might be worth. Long arm usually improves pavement driving too because of the angles you achieve.

Just my 2 cents though.

not a big fan of Terra Flex myself. some of the componets in my current lift (mostly the springs) are TF and I will be replacing them soon.

With the 3.21 gears you wont want to go any larger than 33s, honestly you can easily do a budget boost to make the lift a lot cheaper, get to know the jeep a little before you sink a lot of $$ into a lift. You will want to regear if you go to 35s etc. I have duratracs from good year on my JKU and only rub a little with no lifts and 33s. Save up for a Clayton or BDS as Josh says. You wont like big hills with those gears out west.... I have 3.73s and its still fine for highway and most hills but that would be a waste of a gearing update. I only lost about 1mpg going from stock tires to the duratracs and have logged about 6-10k on them, wear fine and did well on some very easy class VI roads covered in snow and ice this weekend....

Thank you both for the input. I'll definitely be checking out the BDS and Clayton products.

Duratracs have been at the top of the list for a tire upgrade. Hoping the 33s won't be too sluggish on our trip but I can't see myself going with something smaller.

"Orange whip, orange whip, orange whip...three orange whips"

Bill : Welcome to Baystate ! There is a tire Vs. Ratio chart , you can look up what the stock RPMs is and look at what it will be with 33s, More than 300 RPM drop will be felt ,(lack of power) A 300/600 RPM gain would be where you want to end up. Not costing fuel mileage or noise,vibrations. Any after market more aggressive tread tire will help off road but you will sacrifice on road in fuel and or noise , overall wear of the tire. There is no one place to start as there seams to be a bazillion we all want to do to them. Seat time will give you the most experience and this club was built on that principal , We were all new and although it took longer than I would have liked , I was taught well and my Jeep has survived almost without any scars to speak of. You folks will have a blast. See ya on a trail . FjR68

Hi Bill, and welcome to the club. My name's Don, I drive an '09 JK 2-door for off-roading (the wife has a '14 JK Unlimited that we use as a DD). I drove mine with a 2" budget boost and 32" Toyo Open Country ATs for years with the club, including a trip to Moab back in 2009. The Jeep went everywhere I pointed it that whole time. I recently upgraded to 35" Toyo Open Country ATs, after regearing, but I'm still running them on the 2" budget boost and Xenon flat fender flares - and no rubbing. No need to go to a 3" kit for 35's. I'm thinking of replacing the springs and shocks this year with 2" springs, and getting rid of the spacers, but I won't be going any higher.

See you on the trails...

I would think that a lift is more important for a 4 door simply it has to over come the wheel base . My 2c FjR68

Cheever3 wrote: "Orange whip, orange whip, orange whip...three orange whips"

God I miss John Candy...

Thanks again for the input.

Frank wrote:I would think that a lift is more important for a 4 door simply it has to over come the wheel base . My 2c FjR68

Prioritizing is the biggest challenge but a lift is at the top of the list.

Josh and Joliet: checked out the BDS line of products and I was impressed. I like how they provide you with customizable kits. Although the list of addons never ends. I like the warranty too.


http://bds-suspension.com/product?ma=7& ... &kid=1403H

This fits the budget and lends itself easily to upgrades. Just curious as to how this would affect the geometry of the drive shaft without upper and lowers?...they are available add ons but not sure if they are necessary at this point.

We all miss John Candy

There is no magic number when it comes to a lift. Every time we change how it was made , we need to correct something . It could be a drift , a vibration , a clunk. Over the years weve learned to call this QUIRKS . You know its going to drift right if you hit that kind of bump. You live with it but if a friend drives it , they think somethings wrong. Complete lift kit are thought out and some of them (BDS) very well. You just might not need everything all at once. Again , if you notice a vibration that wasnt there it warrants lookin at it. If the steering pulls , you have it alined . I think you will be good to go with your wheel base. Other JK owners will fill in the blanks for you as you go. FjR68

In my opinion, the first three items needed for a new stock jeep should be one of the following: chunkier tires, small/moderate lift, skid plates.

Reasons for each:
Chunkier tires are good for traction. If you don't have traction, you don't go anywhere, regardless of lift and skids. Tires = control.

Small/moderate lift help get the entire frame and components a bit higher and allow for the suspension to better tackle harsher terrain. If you can keep the tires on the ground while crawling, maintaining the traction from tires is much easier.

Skids. Protect that which you paid for. Critical components, wether you have a lift or not, still need to be protected.


The order of each of these is entirely up to you and what your budget allows.


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I agree with ish. I opted to protect first. The reality of a lift is that with more clearance you're going to be inclined to drive over larger obstacles, placing your undercarriage in harm's way regardless. Money is always an obstacle so there's no sense in wasting it replacing components you mangled that are eventually going to be protected anyway - just protect them and use the time to gain some experience with your rig and then make informed decisions about what kinds of upgrades make the most sense for the types of terrain you plan to drive (pavement included.). Ask club members what they've installed and why. For giggles, ask them what they've installed in the past that's no longer on the rig and consider why that is (there's a million reasons to upgrade, not all of them involve mistakes, but you can use other's experiences to guide your decisions.)

Right off the bat I installed control arm skids (don't go cheap, I've had to replace mine already because I went cheap - see my previous paragraph!), oil pan and tranny skid, curly Q exhaust, muffler, evap canister and finally a skid to protect the sway bar disconnect motor (rubi). I then wheeled it that way for most of the year.

Later I added a custom bumper/winch and a 2.5" lift. I went with 2.5 to keep it street-friendly and to avoid geometry problems. Elias installed it for me, and it drives the same way it did before the lift - no issues whatsoever. I'm still on the stock rubi tires and it goes pretty much wherever I point it. And if it doesn't I can pull out the winch. I've only needed that once, but boy did that come in handy that time!!

After taking out my steering stabilizer at Rausch Creek I installed a relocation bracket to keep that little guy safe.

My next purchases will be 34" tires and a gas tank skid. So far I've only lost a small amount of mileage. I'm still getting about 19mpg overall. I expect to lose more with the tire upgrade, which is part of my hesitation... Just for the record, despite all the armor I added, I seemed to lose the most mileage due to the lift.


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Thanks for the input everyone. The long wish list/to do list is underway.

Since you mentioned Elias I'm looking for a reliable shop. I'm in Billerica so Townsend is about an hour. A buddy of mine recommended Motorworx in Peabody but that's close to an hour as well...

If anyone knows of a place closer they use I'd appreciate the tip.

I work at Elias and people come here from all over the north east.

You can read forums all you'd like, but do you want to listen to one person that has one, two or three Jeeps under their belt or listen to people that do all Jeeps, all day, week after week?

You should not expect driving quirks after lifting a JK. If it is done correctly, it will drive correctly. JKs don't tolerate those quirks very much, and 2012 and newer JKs will go into limp mode if your "quirk" is electronically interpreted as a safety issue.

We're a BDS dealer, too, and if you want our opinion we've installed many of their lift kits, as well as AEV, Teraflex, TnT, Clayton, JKS, Zone and more.

It is all about compromises, what can wait until later and what is really a priority. Some mods lend themselves to additional mods in a package, some are completely stand alone. Some mods you do FIRST and will need fine tuning all the way through from 33s to Infinity and Beyond, but stay with your vehicle all the way through and keep it running right. Other mods could push you over an edge of no return and ruin what the JK has to offer on the street.

The theory of start small and work your way up as your ability increases is completely sound logic. I have seen a lot of people WAY over their heads in vehicles that can do more than the driver can do safely.

978 597 8432

mrfreakinwhite wrote:I work at Elias and people come here from all over the north east.

You can read forums all you'd like, but do you want to listen to one person that has one, two or three Jeeps under their belt or listen to people that do all Jeeps, all day, week after week?

You should not expect driving quirks after lifting a JK. If it is done correctly, it will drive correctly. JKs don't tolerate those quirks very much, and 2012 and newer JKs will go into limp mode if your "quirk" is electronically interpreted as a safety issue.

We're a BDS dealer, too, and if you want our opinion we've installed many of their lift kits, as well as AEV, Teraflex, TnT, Clayton, JKS, Zone and more.

It is all about compromises, what can wait until later and what is really a priority. Some mods lend themselves to additional mods in a package, some are completely stand alone. Some mods you do FIRST and will need fine tuning all the way through from 33s to Infinity and Beyond, but stay with your vehicle all the way through and keep it running right. Other mods could push you over an edge of no return and ruin what the JK has to offer on the street.

The theory of start small and work your way up as your ability increases is completely sound logic. I have seen a lot of people WAY over their heads in vehicles that can do more than the driver can do safely.

978 597 8432

I'm sold!


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