i just bought an 88 samurai and am new to samurais in general. have always been a fan though. the samurai i bought has a cobbled together lift on it and i want to do the SPOA lift but don't know much about the manufacturers that sell the kits. i have looked at petroworks and rocky road quite a bit. what are your opinions on them? are there other manufacturers that are worth looking in to?

sky mfg

I agree, the basic SPOA kit from Sky will give you everything you need to get going.

with stock axles, and transfer case gears are 32's too big?

also how what size of tires can you fit with the sky kit?

Standard is 31" tires for most SPOA lifts, but I was able to squeeze 33" tires on my SJ-410 with a bit of trimming of the rear fender wells back in the day.

Depending on what you are planning on using the rig for you can probably get away with the larger tires, but the freeway will be a bit beyond your grasp.  I would recommend looking at the 5.8 or 6.5:1 t-case gear set.

There is a really good write-up at http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/general-suzuki-forum/basic-spoa-on-a-lwb-sj-413-using-stock-parts/ of Kahn-Sultan did of his own SPOA lift.  It should cover a lot of your questions.

As for the Sky Manufacturing kit, I recommend picking up the State 2 kit at http://www.sky-manufacturing.com/new/detaproduct.php?id=92 to get started.  It gives you everything you need to get going quickly and easily.

why do you guys like sky better than rocky road or petroworks? just curious...

I like their wrap around spring pad's.  Having ripped a normal one off the axle the extra bracing is a nice touch.  Plus it makes it easier to mount as it is already lined up.  The new steering setup is a nice touch as well.

But any of the companies kit will work.  The Sky pads are just nicer in my opinion.

the sky stage 2 kit does not come with shock or mounts... will my stock shocks work with this kit or should i just look in to the stage 5 kit that does come with shocks and mounts?

Your stock shocks will work just fine.  You just swap your spring pads from left to right and everything bolts right up, you just won't see the long travel.

I would wait on the longer shocks and instead look into a traction bar for the rear end to avoid spring wrap.

the rear is already sprung over with stock shocks that bottom out everytime is hit a crack in the road. the front looks like someone cut the leaf mounts off the body and welded 3 inch square tubing to the frame, then reattached the spring mounts. looks terrible and i want to redo it all. what exactly is spring wrap? ive read a lot on preventing it but not sure what it is? thanks for bearing with me here!

Can you post some pictures so we have a better idea of what we are looking at?  There might be something off in how the rear shocks are mounted and it would help to be able to figure out how your front end was hacked up.

Spring Wrap is when your rear springs turn into an S instead of a gental curve.  It usually comes from hill climbing when the back of the rig rig starts bouncing around, the springs were not designed to be in a spring over axle configuration so they are kind of weak against the axle rolling under the spring.  I bent up two sets of rear springs before switching to a 4 link in the back.

here is the rear shock setup

and this is the cobbled together front, let me know what you think of this work! lol

Looks like some solid work to me.

Amilla