I am new to offroad and new to the Suzuki world.  I have a 1988 soft top and have cut away the rust and am now welding in new skin to have a solid cover.  Have a new gas tank from Petro Works and seats from rugged ridge.  Now the questions.  I plan to do offroad mud, sand and rock in NJ, PA and logging roads in Upper NY Adirondacks.  I think I need tires either 32" or 33" to have good ground clearance.  Looking at the SKY SPOA kit with a 4.5" lift with standard OEM springs will the tires fit?  Should I change springs to provide extra lift?  Do I need more lift from shackles or body lift (1" or 2") from your experience.  I plan to add gears to the transfer case and a locker rear with the Sky traction Bar.  Any comments or advice from buildup experience is welcome.  Starting this build at age 63 I don't have a lot of years to learn by trial and error.  I can trade a few dollars to purchase the right thing the first time and get her done over this comming winter.  I'm taking a little time to plan the complete upgrade before starting so I have a good idea of how it will all fit by the end of the project.  Appreciate any suggestions and thaks in advance.

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I run a straight SPOA with 33" tires, but I had to do some fender trimming to make it work without rubbing.  On top of that I run a helper spring up front to keep the spring packs with a slight positive arch instead of running with negative arch like you see with a lot of SPOA conversions.  If your looking to do road running at speed you might want to look at switching to a SPOA with Jeep YJ Springs, I believe Sky has a lift available for that as well.

The YJ springs will give you a lot softer ride then the stock SJ/Samurai springs and an extra inch or two of lift to help clear the 33" tires.  A club member uses this kit on his Samurai and it's a lot softer ride then my SJ and give him great flex.  I agree with your choice of a traction bar.  I have s-curved one set of rear springs and the before mentioned Samurai is installing one on his, as the YJ springs are starting to curve unnaturally.  He also has Dana 44 up front and a Ford 9" on the rear now, but to Toyota width.

You can see pictures of the various rigs at http://picasaweb.google.com/CrawlersNW

http://picasaweb.google.com/CrawlersNW/ReiterTrailRunJuly5th08# has some good pictures of both.

I'll look into the YJ springs.  Do you get new springs or go to the junk yard?  Appreciate your initial response.  I hate just doing things from the advertisements.

I have my sami set up SPOA with YJ springs.  I had enough room for 34" LTBs, with my bump stops in there is no rubbing. 
As for finding some YJs i would recommend buying/finding a set of beat on springs.  I got my from a buddy and they were negatively arched and looking pretty worn out.  When i slapped them under my samurai they hold a positive arch and are super flexy. (Im pretty sure there not going to settle any more)
I would stay away from shackle lifting, unless your just doing some fine tuning, such as leveling out your rig.  The bigger your shackle gets the worse your shackle angle is.

Sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what your going to be doing.  Get to getting and let us know how its going!

Hope that helps some what


Amilla