So your Jeep has IFS...aside from all the banter, have
- Thread starter enumclaw
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jeep-N-montero
Expedition Leader
Ask the right question and you get a better answer.
phxtoad
Adventurer
With the Liberty the IFS has proven to be very durable for stock tire size. For larger tires you need a lift. If you have a lift, plan on replacing the Upper A-arms since the stock A-arms have a non-replaceable/non-greaseable ball joint. You'll wear them out quickly. The CV shafts are also very dependable IF you wheel carefully. If you push them hard they will go POP. Luckily they are pretty cheap to replace nowadays. A factory vehicle with IFS has limited articulation and likely low ground clearance as well. So those things combined, it's pretty easy to find out the vehicle's limits quickly.
comrad_zeelaagee
Adventurer
First start with getting a JEEP with a sfa... 
bob91yj
Resident **************
IMO opinion the solid front axle requirement went out the door a few years ago.
EVERY class of vehicle short of 1700 (Jeepspeed) and the odd Stock Full Dodge/Ford runs IFS in desert racing. I'd dare say that those cars cover more varied off road terrain in one day than most Expo rigs see in a year...in short, IFS can be made to work, and work exceptionally well. Shannon Campbell and Dave Cole are on the cutting edge of the Ultra 4 class (King of the Hammers), both are running IFS cars.
For a dedicated rock crawler, nothing beats a solid front axle...for an all around vehicle, used 90% of the time as a daily driver, I'd much rather live with IFS than I would a solid axle.
Sure it's an apples/oranges argument comparing a dedicated desert racer to an Expo rig...not much more of a stretch than comparing a daily driver to a full on Expo rig though.
EVERY class of vehicle short of 1700 (Jeepspeed) and the odd Stock Full Dodge/Ford runs IFS in desert racing. I'd dare say that those cars cover more varied off road terrain in one day than most Expo rigs see in a year...in short, IFS can be made to work, and work exceptionally well. Shannon Campbell and Dave Cole are on the cutting edge of the Ultra 4 class (King of the Hammers), both are running IFS cars.
For a dedicated rock crawler, nothing beats a solid front axle...for an all around vehicle, used 90% of the time as a daily driver, I'd much rather live with IFS than I would a solid axle.
Sure it's an apples/oranges argument comparing a dedicated desert racer to an Expo rig...not much more of a stretch than comparing a daily driver to a full on Expo rig though.
yellocoyote
Adventurer
As stated, it's all about what you want to do with it. Then build accordingly.
Rant on:
Yes, IFS can be made to work really well. But its so much cheaper to build a solid axle rig that works even better. I currently own an 05 WK, it rides poor, flexes badly, and is expensive to modify. How is this better than a solid axle rig? Even if we are talking strictly street I don't see how IFS is better. I previously owned a WJ and right out of the box it had a better suspension than this WK. Its on road manners were better, it road smoother, it soaked up the bumps better, flex was slightly better. Plus with about a grand worth of work you could have an unbelievable suspension with tons of travel. And what $1500 or so for a 4" superlift for the WK and you get no real improvment other than being able to fit bigger tires on. To get any real improvement you have to add UCA's, and coilovers...
I've owned a few GM trucks as well, both 1/2 tons and 3/4 tons, they had decent street manners but soon as you hit rough road surfaces the IFS beat you to death and you were rebuilding front ends every 80k miles. At my last job I put around 100,000 miles a year driving various trucks, and by far the best riding and driving trucks were our solid axle, coil sprung Dodge 2500's. 99% of the driving I did for work was pavement, and we still rebuilt those GM ifs every damn year. The most work we ever did to our SFA Dodges was once in a while a ball joint or u-joint started getting stiff.
But if we're talking old school leaf sprung solid axles, well yeah stock to stock I'd take IFS all day long. One of the worst riding trucks i've owned was a 99 F250 SuperDuty, leaf spring SFA with heavy duty springs, road like a tank. But even leaf springs can be made to work well for minimal money, plus your taking a whole lot of wear items out of the suspension as well. And yeah for the high speed desert stuff IFS and IRS seems to be where its at, but look at those trucks, 100% custom and expensive. Heck ifs started taking over desert racing in the 80's with TTB Fords, but even those were HEAVILY modified... Then take a look at a Jeepspeed XJ and how basically stock the front suspension is and see how well that does, pretty darn good.
Hmm, but now that I think about it, I had an 84 Eagle with ifs, that thing friggin' rocked... It road decent and probably had more flex than my WK, it sure had more ground clearance...
Yes, IFS can be made to work really well. But its so much cheaper to build a solid axle rig that works even better. I currently own an 05 WK, it rides poor, flexes badly, and is expensive to modify. How is this better than a solid axle rig? Even if we are talking strictly street I don't see how IFS is better. I previously owned a WJ and right out of the box it had a better suspension than this WK. Its on road manners were better, it road smoother, it soaked up the bumps better, flex was slightly better. Plus with about a grand worth of work you could have an unbelievable suspension with tons of travel. And what $1500 or so for a 4" superlift for the WK and you get no real improvment other than being able to fit bigger tires on. To get any real improvement you have to add UCA's, and coilovers...
I've owned a few GM trucks as well, both 1/2 tons and 3/4 tons, they had decent street manners but soon as you hit rough road surfaces the IFS beat you to death and you were rebuilding front ends every 80k miles. At my last job I put around 100,000 miles a year driving various trucks, and by far the best riding and driving trucks were our solid axle, coil sprung Dodge 2500's. 99% of the driving I did for work was pavement, and we still rebuilt those GM ifs every damn year. The most work we ever did to our SFA Dodges was once in a while a ball joint or u-joint started getting stiff.
But if we're talking old school leaf sprung solid axles, well yeah stock to stock I'd take IFS all day long. One of the worst riding trucks i've owned was a 99 F250 SuperDuty, leaf spring SFA with heavy duty springs, road like a tank. But even leaf springs can be made to work well for minimal money, plus your taking a whole lot of wear items out of the suspension as well. And yeah for the high speed desert stuff IFS and IRS seems to be where its at, but look at those trucks, 100% custom and expensive. Heck ifs started taking over desert racing in the 80's with TTB Fords, but even those were HEAVILY modified... Then take a look at a Jeepspeed XJ and how basically stock the front suspension is and see how well that does, pretty darn good.
Hmm, but now that I think about it, I had an 84 Eagle with ifs, that thing friggin' rocked... It road decent and probably had more flex than my WK, it sure had more ground clearance...
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Eaglefreek
Eagleless
:bowdown:
Bikemobile
Adventurer
I plan on putting the biggest tire that will fit my 2008 wk without modifying the pinch weld or fenders. It seems that all the budget lifts seem to have some issues on the wk. OME seems to be the way to go but its pricey.
Except for a few menopause responses (again), I learned from the rest of you. I think there seems to be a huge camp of rockcrawler types who don't see past that. That is great and outstanding! But like several said unless that is all I do -there are benefits to the IFS has. That being said maybe the Jeep folder should be broken out to Solid front axle crawlers - and expedition rigs. As I read IFS is very common in Expedition rigs and disliked in the crawler world.......maybe thats a new post...
reece146
Automotive Artist
You would have gotten much better feedback if you had formulated your question correctly. You threw out your question which was very vague and then did absolutely nothing to vector the feedback in the direction you wanted to discuss that was relevant to your needs.
Considering the failings of your post and the subsequent abandonment of said post I'd say you got some pretty solid feedback from both camps. I don't see a need to split the Jeep section given what has happened in this thread.
Considering the failings of your post and the subsequent abandonment of said post I'd say you got some pretty solid feedback from both camps. I don't see a need to split the Jeep section given what has happened in this thread.