Can anyone tell me anything about this? Had a passing thought about grabbing a cheapish 2wd XJ and going racecar/street car mode, something aggressive looking like this
Can anyone tell me anything about this? Had a passing thought about grabbing a cheapish 2wd XJ and going racecar/street car mode, something aggressive looking like this
In all of Challenge history, this gets my vote as most amazing and most inspirational Challenger with stock based drive train and stock bodywork.
My favorite part is that this build made me see XJs in a whole new way.
They built something that did the unexpected!
JohnRW1621 wrote: In all of Challenge history, this gets my vote as most amazing and most inspirational Challenger with stock based drive train and stock bodywork. My favorite part is that this build made me see XJs in a whole new way. They built something that did the unexpected!
And it did it really, really well. Legend already along with the sucker vette, the zamboni and the volksrod imo. And probably the mongrel miata that managed to breal nearly the entire rulebook at the time.
I'm just gonna leave this right here...
The GRM build thread above shows pretty much everything we've done to it over the years. We also turboed it overnight in the hotel parking lot at the Challenge after pounding a bunch of beers. I would love to get the guys to bring it back to the Challenge someday, or even the UTCC!
As far as actually building one, they're pretty easy to screw with. Any 4" ID coil spring with a pigtailed top and tangential bottom will fit up front, so there's tons of choices out there, especially if you're willing to start cutting. The suspension up front is a fairly simple parallel-ish 4 link with a track bar. Rear is a dirt simple leaf spring setup.
FWIW, weight difference for 2wd vs 4wd is around 150 lbs, by my best estimate. 4wd does have more rotating weight and is harder to get as low, however.
Got ya I had read briefly the first thread but didn't go all the way, I was looking for the second one... I guess I'm not wrapping my head around what's needed to get get low... I mean I'm not looking to slam it and hellaflush (cause that's just kinda dumb) but something that would lens it's self to being low enough to put wide steelies on and go play. Had considered getting looking for a 2wd 5speed just because I see no need for the 4wd, and considered the possibility of something stupid like a 2jz or sr20 swap or something retarded...
The unfortunate is I'm not very able bodied atm and don't own or know how to use a welder effectively, and this looks very much like a welder intensive job... Wonder how much a shop might charge for that?
If you're not looking to drop the suspension more than 2 inches or so (maybe 3 inches if you don't need much up-travel), you can get away with very little welding. It'll just require moving around shock mounts and bumpstops and getting the right springs under it.
Keep in mind, the more you widen it, the more stable it will be at a given ride height, so you won't need to lower it as much (less fabrication, can retain more suspension up-travel for rougher ground). Putting 25" tall tires on it will also drop it about 1.75" from the stock size tires (just under 28.5" tall). And there's plenty of other things that can be done to get the COG down without having to slam the thing. Adding some chassis reinforcement to stiffen up the unibody will add some weight, but that weight is all going to be down low in the Jeep, so it's a net win in my mind (especially if you can then chop some weight out of it up higher without it folding up like paper).
If you want to go all out with getting the COG down, replace as much glass as possible with lexan (the glass is all well above the stock COG, which from what I've found online, is somewhere around 27 - 28" off the ground). Also ditch the roof rack, take the spare tire out (or re-mount it laying flat in the back, instead of standing up). If you keep the rear seats in it, fold them down when racing (the little things all add up). For my ZJ, because I'm not lowering the suspension (don't want to sacrifice travel for rallycross, etc.), I'm getting it some motor mounts to re-mount the drivetrain (engine/trans/t-case) a 1/2" lower. In my case, being a V8/4wd/auto, that's almost 1000 lbs being moved down with no loss in suspension travel (still has plenty of axle to oil pan clearance) and no loss in useful ground clearance (just puts the drivetrain closer to the skid plates that are going under them).
2jz swap has been done before. There's a close enough relation between the AW-4 autos those used and the A340 in an auto Supra that it's easy to do from a driveline perspective (and has been done with 4wd intact too!) Manuals are a similar story. The AX-15 is very closely related to the R15x series of Toyota transmissions.
I think most of the lowering is accomplished by the tires, especially in the rear. Look where the hubs are relative to the body. As I recall, they got more camber from the front end by pie cutting the front axle tube (2wd axle), bending, and welding it back up
Camber up front can also be had without cutting. Offset ball joints will do the trick. They did the cutting because it was cheaper for them (more work, less parts to buy), IIRC.
In reply to rslifkin:
I thought they couldn't get enough from offset ball joints?
That's possible. I know you can get up to 1.5* from the ball joints (and the stock XJ/ZJ/TJ 4wd front axle has about 0.3 degrees of negative camber to start with, so I'd assume the 2wd beam has about the same). You might be able to run both offset uppers and lowers to get up to 3 degrees, but I'm not sure if that'll work or not.
Hi,
Offset ball joints are an option. You can get uppers and lowers that have up to 1.75 degree adjustment each for a max of 3.5 degrees. At the time when we were building the Jeep we could only find the adjustable ball joints for $50 each. Since it was a challenge build it was way cheaper to cut a pie section out of the tube axle and weld it back up. I think you can find them pretty cheap on Rock Auto now.
Jeep is lowered about 5” all around. To get that low in the front the bump stops had to be cut off. That’s the only modification to the shell. The track bar bracket on the axle will need to be relocated or a shorter bar will need to be sourced. If not the axle will move over and not be centered under the vehicle. We also shortened the upper control arm brackets on the axle and extended the lower ones. Its corrected the arm angles and caster after lowering. Rear is now sprung under with a Ford Explorer 8.8 axle and a few extra leafs mixed in. Stock axle will work but we wanted cheap rear disc, 3.73 gears, and LSD.
The neat part I think about all the suspension mods is they bolt in. Yeah there was cutting and welding involved on the pieces installed but we could easily return the Jeep to stock or convert it to 4wd and lift it.
This jeep it's way too epic... I'm going to research more but I guess if anyone has access to a 2wd xj front end, or that trucks front and rear end, I'd love to see as I'm more visual and it's been years since I've been under an xj
I guess the last question I have is, how streetable is it after dropping it? I'm a heavy guy do would I be safe in driving it would it still be able to pull stuff(like a small trailer) I'm so jacked up on doing this, maybe not as a challenge car, but something cool to get the coals burning in my loins about cars again lol... I mean how many xjs out there are like this, bet naxja loved this lol Please any info please come forth, ill look into those ball joints, probably stick with stock axel till I get everything lowered
There's a 96 2wd XJ sitting in my driveway with the engine out at the moment. What do you need to see?
Basically pics of the suspension setup, arms springs, steering arms ect I guess everything as a whole, I honest to god can't remember what the bottom of an xj looks like. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what was actually done on the lowered jeep, seing everything as a whole might get my brain gears turning Thanks in advance.
If you're wanting to tow with it or beat on it with less than smooth pavement underneath, I wouldn't drop the suspension too far and would work on getting the weight down via other methods (and widening it for stability. Up front, it gets tough to keep decent travel as you go down further without smashing steering bits or the axle, etc. into the oil pan. That also means that as you go lower, you lose the option of dropping the drivetrain relative to the body.
Here's some shots of the front end.
Ty so much for the pics, I went a googling and still couldn't find anything this good. Much appreciated
I'm still looking at doing this with a jeep, but workable reasonable xjs are hard to come by around here... Has anyone heard or seen something like this with an older s10 blazer? Just a thought...
Yes. I've seen an S-10 with giant fibreglass pre-runner fender flares on one. Instead of Super Swampers, it was slammed on slicks. Sure you could do the same with a Blazer.
I'm sure it can be done with the Blazer, but the suspension (up front) isn't going to be as dirt simple to work with. Although, you do get the S10 crowd to source parts from...
FWIW, if you can live with the (significant) extra weight, a 1st gen Grand Cherokee (93 - 98) has the exact same front suspension as an XJ and a 4 link + track bar with coils in the rear (very much resembles the front). The wheelbase is only about 5" longer, and a lot of the extra weight is in the nicer interior, etc. and can be stripped out (although the chassis is heavier, so you're still at a 600 or so pound disadvantage when you're done, from what I know). At least the chassis is stronger / stiffer to help make up for it. The ZJs also come with a V8 option, which is a lot easier to crank up the power on than the 4.0 I6 (and the I6 vs V8 is a pretty minimal weight difference, no more than 100 lbs for the engine and bigger trans).
I was just thinking in terms of I'd I can't find a decent jeep... I looked on ebay and some of the xjs were asking 10k, still wondering what kind of pipe they had to be smoking all that stuff... but at any rate, just thinking about other possibilities if it comes to it...
Not looking to do a jgc, but I do have a line on a cheap 2001 2wd jgc...
An 01 (WJ) is still pretty easy to work with. The suspension is very similar up front (4-link + track bar), the rear on those is a 3-link that functions like a triangulated 4-link (a-arm with a ball joint as the upper link). They're a pretty stiff chassis too, and only a few pounds heavier than the ZJ.
rslifkin wrote: FWIW, if you can live with the (significant) extra weight, a 1st gen Grand Cherokee (93 - 98) has the exact same front suspension as an XJ and a 4 link + track bar with coils in the rear
Will the rear setup swap onto an XJ?
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