Coilovers?

Hi Guys,
I'm pondering converting to front coilovers and know a few guys here are running custom setups in their rigs.

With a 6 inch lift, I'm guessing I'd have to go the custom route, but thought I would check if anyone has heard of units available for the XJ or if TJ coilovers could be easily modified?

I really can't go with custom hoops, etc as it wouldn't pass state inspection for a DD :tears:. So the upper mounts would have to be close to to an OE setup.

ill come right out and say i dont know alot about coilovers..BUT, i know a fair amount about suspension in general. My question is, if you have to have the coilover mounted at the same hight as say the stock spring or shock, wont this cancel out the possibly benifits of a coilover, ie travel increases etc...

if you need to pass inspection i think you would get more for your money and hassle by sticking with a stock style front suspension

if you plated the shock tower and tied it in in a few places i dont see why you couldnt use a coil over in the stock shock location... now having said that do I believe it would be benificial ....NO. your gona sacrafice up travel and have to use a very soft spring rate to get decent ride and all you will gain is droop. the guys ive seen running coil overs are lifted 6 inches or more so they have the the ability to run a decent length coil over and none of them use the stock location

Fabtech and also Bilstein make some pretty fancy ones that might fit in the stoc locations.

Thanks guys for your thoughts/obserations. I should have provided more information initially (sorry).

The goal (if I can accomplish it) is to narrow the axle back to stock width (60.5). The reason being to both match my rear axle width and make it easier to pass state inspection. I've verified coilovers will pass state DOT as long as they are soundly built. The pinion was off a bit, so the axle is being rebuilt . So now is the time to narrow it if I'm going to.

Due to the size of the knuckles, etc, the only area left to narrow the axle is to reduce the footprint of the spring perch.

If this is going to turn into a sizeable undertaking, I'll bag the idea and look at other ways to deal with inspection, etc.

I've seen several TJ coilover packages and know XJ coilovers (with sizable modifications) are becoming more popular, so I thought I would research this a bit as a possible option.

Thanks again for your help .

I just got done doing coil-overs up front. My front mount looks mildly similar to the one in this thread (bottom picture). http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=87268&page=13

I used 12" travel shocks and with my ride height is roughly 4+ inches. Because of this my mount extends much higher into the engine bay.

I didn't use a hoop due to it interfering with to many other items in the engine bay. All-in-all things have worked out, but you won't ever confuse it with a factory setup. So if your DMV is lenient then great if not then I think you will be in for a tough project.

Holy fabrication MGrobe:scared:

That's outstanding.

After a ton of research, I decided to bag the coilover idea (at least for now). The amount of fabrication needed on a unibody to do this correctly is pretty extensive (as you well know).

I'm still working through new axles and hi-steer issues. So I don't want to add this complexity to the build at the moment.

Thanks to everyone for providing their thoughts / recommendations .