Well, I like it : )

After I got it aligned (the Firestone lifetime), we took it up to Bear Canyon Lake to do some camping and fishing and it did very well.

I really put it to the test on the mountain highway, pushing it around the curves to see how it felt without the sway bar.  It turns out, I couldn't tell at all, and Jared's Jeep had trouble keeping up at the higher speeds.  The shocks made the ride on the highway extremely smooth.  The lack of articulation with the arms eating the bump stops did make it somewhat jarry up front on the trails, but no more than some vehicles.  There was a considerable amount of bump steer before the alignment, and a pretty good bit now, but I'm hoping the upgraded steering kit that's on its way will help with that.  You basically have to beef up the steering since you're putting so much strain on the front components with your arms all angled down.  It always sucks having to buy an expensive part that no one will see (Jeep people, think about the SYE you passed on), especially when you're Jonesing for some externals (mmmm Shrockworks).  But I guess the investment part and the something not snapping going down the freeway wins out.

If I were going to leave her this way, I would need some bigger tires.  I hate metric numbers so much, I'll just say the tires I have are basically 31's and I need 32's.  But... Even though the X looks great and the lift is apparent when parked next to other stock SUV's like Grand Chero's, it doesn't scream lifted like a Jeep when driving down the road.  Parked next to the Jeeps it doesn't look too bad, although the side windows make the Jeep height look much greater.  So I guess what I'm saying and what have heard from all those immediately around me, is that I need to go higher and a body lift is the only way to do this.  So I'm going with a 2" and then getting SW's 2" BL version of their front bumper and sliders.  Also, instead of buying the tires twice, I'll upgrade to 33's once the BL is done.  It's only an extra $160.  Dana said only then can I grace my windshield with my own site's logo sticker.

Side Note:  While I had been researching my lift, I found that you can lift a Nissan truck or SUV a good 1.5 inches (called a PML- Poor Man's Lift) by just adding longer rear shackles and cranking up the torsion bars similar to what I did.  So when I bought my lift I had Calmini send out two sets of shackles for Steve and Jonathan's Nissan 2WD trucks.  It only took 30 per side to do and that little 1.5" surprisingly made their trucks look entirely different.  Steve was tickled and kept threatening Dana with putting a HG4x4 sticker of his own on his windshield.  I told him I'd make him, Jonathan, and Chris (his Jeep's been lamed a 2WD still for over a year) their own site at HigherGround4x2.com.

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