So in my quest to figure out the best way to put a usable lift on my 88 samurai, I was walking throught the junk yard to day, and happened across a sidekick.  I hadn't thought much about it before, but they have coil springs in the back.  Now I'm thinking maybe an axle swap would cut the work in half for a coil spring conversion in the back.......
But, now what to do for the front.....

Something with 5:12s in it.

the problem is doing it and budget, I can do a lift or gears, but not both.  I'm really leaning to the YJ SPOA conversion.  then doing the gears in the the transfer case as soon as possible.  eventually swapping in toyota axles, then gears and lockers.

For now I just need to figure out what lift to get, and whether or not I want to try to scrounge junk yards for some of the parts to cut the cost.

How much lift do you want? You could pull the rear axle from the Kick and the front diff too, that would sort your gears out. SPOA on the front using your original rear springs would be cheap and give more flex.

Is the sidekick front diff a bolt in application, or does it take some machine work?  How can I find out what the gear ratio is in the axles both on the kick and my sammy?  I've looked for a tag, and tried asking the zuki dealer with the vin# but no luck.

I ordered the spidertrax SPOA kit today for about 250 plus shipping.  right now I have some really big shackles lifting it and my 33's rub bad when I turn.

The sidekick axles may be an option down the road, that would give me time to put lockers in the diffs, and gear the axles where I want them build the four link bars, then do the swap in a weekend. 

The front diff is a bolt in application, but you need to make sure you get the right year.  Pre-96 (I think) has the correct spline to match the front end of the Samurai.  If you get a 96 and up you will need the Calamini Heavy Duty Front Shafts with the larger spline to use the Tracker Diff (Once again, I believe).

Most people that play on rocks a lot will swap the gears into a Samurai diff in order to get the steel casing as the Aluminum one will break if you try hard enough.

Let us know how the Spidertrax install goes.