axle and gear advice

I have a 1997 xj sport that I'm wanting to put an 8 inch suspension lift on with 37 inch tires, what's going to be the best axle and/or gearing to with the lift and tires? Are there any 5 or 6 speed automatic transmission that I can also swap with the one that I already have in my jeep?

Depends how you plan to use it.

Pavement Princess: Stock axles with 5.13 gears and chromoly axle shafts wouldn't hurt.

Daily driver with light off-road: JK Rubicon Dana 44's front and rear, trussed, chromoly shafts/CRV's, full case lockers, 5.13 - 5.38 gears. (For the amount of work and money you would be better off with 1 ton axles).

Off-roader/crawler: 05+ Ford 1 ton axles 5.38 gears.

37's weight way more than 33's or 35's. At that point you would be going tons. Full body cherokees on 37's are getting to be few and far between. If you do it, gear it deep, 5.38's because the 6 banger in these doesn't have huge torque. Personally I've been fine on 33's for 13 years and have wheeled a ton of trails people would call "extreme" without issues. 35's are about the biggest i'd do on an XJ. The stock axles 8.25/44 rear and D30 High pinion front can handle 35's with good internals.

It won’t matter what axles you have because with 8” of lift it’s just going to flop over as soon as you make a turn leaving your neighborhood.

I did a 609/14b under my rig and the stock 4.0 has a really hard time pushing the 37's around with 5.13 gears. If I was planning on keeping the stock 4.0 I would have gone 5.38's. I'm also only around 5" of lift.

I ran 37’s on a 92 XJ with an Explorer 8.8 rear and Waggy D44 front. I used spacer/adapters on the 8.8 to get the width and bolt pattern to match the front. I think I only had 4.56 or 4.88 gears and the XJ drove fine on the street with an AX15. I had a teralow 4:1 in the 231 transfer case so the crawl ratio was decent too. That rig had a 6.5” long arm kit and was still really tall.

A matched Ford HP D44/9” combo will work fine with 37’s properly trussed and setup. Just keep the weight down and don’t have a lead foot. If you’re going to play throttle jockey and pretend you’re in an Ultra 4 rig or a southern big block rock jumper you better just go tons.

You definitely don’t need 8” of lift though. If you want 37’s you’re going to be cutting up the body, plain and simple. It’ll be worth it in the end because your rig will be way more stable and work a lot better. XJ’s just don’t have the room for big tires. If you’re just after some big tired pavement princess then just get a used JK. 2.5” spacer lift and some flat fenders will net you 37’s for the mall.