Love that dirt falling out of the skid while you're airborne!
Thanks! lol, I keep looking back to that picture... it's just not something you see often, especially on a bone stock Jeep! Plus, the timing of it... I mean, without the picture it wouldn't be the same.
I've heard good and bad about the 231 4:1 kit, for the price of the kit alone I could just about pickup a used Rubi 4:1 case, then get a little money back by selling my 231 (maybe a bit more if the SYE was installed).... skipping that idea is probably a good thing.
Ya'll are exactly right, about learning to wheel it first and do what gets me by.
Which is why I want my first big mods to be the belly-up transfercase skid.... this past weekend at River Rock it was just dragging on everything, and is why I kept getting hung up, I would be crawling over something fine and then it would just lay flat down on the skid, it hangs so low. '03-'06 have a much lower xfercase skid plate then '97-'02. If I was to pick 1 thing to make my Jeep more capable as it is right now, it would be replacing that skid plate, even over lockers.
The kit requires a SYE, which from what I have been reading, also requires a new CV driveshaft. Thats where I was torn between spending money in the 231 or not, From everything I did so far, I am happy with the low range as it is.
I am surprised at the factory GS-A's, now with almost 46k on them, they've still got a good bit of life left, they should make it to 60k. I was first going to get 33's, but I want to get 31's first, once those wear out, then 33's. I think a long term goal would be 35's and probably no bigger, but I am not even planning that far ahead yet, next is 31's (in a M/T). I've got 3.73 gears, and from what I've been reading up, they should be fine up to 33's. I feel the Jeep is geared too low as it is, I don't even use 1st gear on the street, heck in 2H it redlines in 1st around 20mph. Not that I normally (actually just about never) run to redline, it's lucky if it sees 3k RPM between shifts (now the BMW on the other hand....
)I think the 31's will help even out the gearing, and 33's on my Jeep would probably be a nice setup with the current gearing.
my 6th is OD, which is actually a lower final drive then the 5spd OD (.78 for 5spd vs .84 for 6spd) so if tires/gears are the same, I'll be spinning a higher RPM in OD compared to a 5spd in OD, which should also help with still being able to use OD on the highway with bigger tires. As it is now, Overdrive 6th will pull me up the small hills around here at 45mph no problem.
I've been researching Jeeps and Jeep stuff for several years now on JeepForums, sometimes I'll kill hours just searching thru the posts to learn information. I already made my first goof, I told myself I was going to get a '03-'06 Rubicon, but thru a series of events, I got my Sport... shes got the 4.0, manual and Dana44 (were all a must) and while the 4:1 and F/R lockers would be nice, and probably save money on the long run, the Sport was cheaper to buy...plus, I am forced to learn to wheel the open diff Sport instead of just flipping the locker switch. It bugged the heck outta me the first 2-3 weels after I got my Jeep, now I am happy with it and it's no big deal anymore. I was quite amazed at the things it was able to do at RR totally stock.