the front shaft can handle the angles of a large lift just fine, and almost always has enough slip in it, but the length may or may not be correct, so you may need to get it re-tubed.
if your front shaft spins in 2wd (no disco or lockout hubs) then you may run into issues with getting both your pinion angle and caster angle right. the solution to this is cutting and turning your knuckles, it's not nearly as hard as I had gotten the impression, do a search here, on Pirate, and on Google for cut'n'turn info.