My longarm kit came in. Here are photos of the front track bar, rear shock mount, rear track bar drop bracket and major components. Use this for a writeup-- The Fabtech longarm kit is in ahead of schedule. I unpacked everything and the kit is typical of Fabtech quality. The control arms are beefy ( lowers are 1"3/4 and uppers 1"1/4) and the front and rear track bars are 1.5" and 1" respectively. The only item I do not care for is the design of the kit has you mounting the stock skid plate below the control arm crossmember. That will not do. So I wil be tossing out the stock skid plate and be fabricating my own flat type skid plate. I will also be using RE new style disconnects and monotube remote resevoir shocks. I will post new photos as the kit gets installed.

John Currie at Currie Enterprises came through for me and sent a great looking flat skid plate. This will be installed to raise the tranny back up to stock location because the Fabtech subframes drop the skidplate down. Currie also included a tranny skidplate as well.

The Fabtech kit is installed and the 37" X Terrains are on. The lift install was very smooth and I am impressed with the kit. There were many nice touches that you do not find on other longarm kits. The kit included a drop bracket for the e-brake cable assembly, the rear track bar is fashioned to go around the factory tailpipe, the rear upper control arms have mounting tabs for the ebrake cables, and the front extended brake lines have springs to pull the brake lines away from the tires. The fit and finish of the kit is superb. I did install the Currie high clearance skidplate with no problems. It lifted the transmission back up to with in a 1/4" of where it was before. Very nice. There is not alot of room to stuff 37" tires but the additional clearance under the axles is nice. The bumpstop extensions that came with the kit actually stop the tires from hitting the body. Now its time to do the exhaust

The lift is in and done. In order to turn the 37" tires I installed a set of Yukon's 4.88 gears front and rear to get the rpm's back up in the powerband. And I can say they were the perfect choice. While we were doing the gear swap we also changed the front outer axle shafts to a set of 30 spline units from Drivetrain Direct. That set up came with the new matching front hub assemblies as well. The gear swap went quick because the factory shims were right on. That does not happen very often.

I also installed a set of Mopar rear corner guards to guard against rock damage to the rear of the jeep. They were a perfect fit and attached with supplied nutserts. Jeep even included the nutsert installation tool. First impressions of the maiden drive are fabulous. No bump steer, handling is great and at 65 mph it turns 2400 rpm. Very nice. Now its time to build rock sliders and the front cage.

I decided I wanted a few more inches of lift for the 37" tires. the way I did this was to add Fabtechs adjustable coilover spacers to the existing 6" coils. An automatic 2" of lift was gained putting these spacers in at the lowest setting. There is an extra 3" of lift possible by screwing the adjusters down. After running the TJ up the RTI ramp it appears the extra 2" is all that is required. I adjusted the rear spacers up another 3/4" to handle all the gear I carry in the back. The adjustable spacers are easily installed. On the ramp I noticed the rear bump stops are right on but the fronts are exactly 2" away from touching. That will be easy to fix. 8" of lift looks more appropriate for the 37" X Terrains.

Here are a couple shots of what I did to make my bumper heights legal. I attached a piece of 1" x 2" rectangular tube to the rear bumper. For the front I bent up some 2" tube and attached that in three places up front. Both pieces are quickly removeable for trail riding.

I needed a secure place to keep recovery gear and tools, so I opted to install a Tuffy rear box that is special made just for the Jeep Unlimited. Installation was simple, it mounts using existing seat belt and roll bar mounting bolts. First you remove the drawer and assemble the sides to complete the outer shell. This shell is mounted first and once it is securely bolted down you simply slide the drawer in and you are done. It has enough room to hold a Warn recovery bag, 2 extra straps, a bottle jack, large first aid kit, VIAIR compressor and a good sized toolbox. Very nice unit.

I normally do K&N air intake systems on Wranglers but for 2005 Jeep moved the air intake temp sensor up into the air tube. K&N did not have a provision for this. I called Airraid and they had just come out with an air intake that fits up through 2005. I immediately picked one up and here is the install. The filter cold air intake shield is the best I have seen to date. This shield actually seals tight against the hood. All others I have seen including K&N still leave a gap to the hood. Airraid accomplishes this by having the shield slide in over the grille support rod. A rubber grommet cushions the rod to the shield. The air intake tube has a support bracket that attaches to one of the valve cover bolts. High quality rubber grommets are included to attach the tube to the throttle body and to the filter shield. The whole install took about 20 minutes. A good product with a noticeable power increase. Cost of this product is $229.99.