Do a coil spring conversion, I forgot who makes it off the top of my head, but that's why I went over to a sidekick, it rides like butter off road compared to my old samurais leaf springs. Its a night and day difference. I wanted to do that on my sami and it was only $1500ish if I remembered right and you could choose a 6" or 8" lift(6 is more than enough for more people), but that's just what I would do

Whether you plan on keeping relatively small tires or go as big as 33s, the best/easiest setup you can do is Wrangler leaf springs. Under a lightweight Sami they ride squishy like an old school Cadillac...

yea, the tires i have on there are fine, do yall know how the ride is on the old man emu springs

I put Calmini shackle reverse and OME springs. I like the ride a lot better. I did have to put on longer shocks and a drop pitman. Here's a pic of it with 215 tires.

Drone637 put a 4-link in the rear end of his SJ 410, and it really improved the ride and handling of it.  He has 33" tires and was having spring wrap, with bent springs, so it was traction bars or 4-link.
I used it up in the snow at Lake Chelan a couple of weeks ago, and was able to run around until dragging the diff's, then just lost traction.  Soft fresh snow on frozen ground.

Check with him on his build.  http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/build-diaries-how-to-diy/sj-410-rear-4-link-build/

For simple and effective I'd suggest either getting the medium duty Old man emu springs or the Calmini 2" S/R kit. The key part is to get some good shocks such as Bilsteins.... Either lift suggested will make your Samurai large enough for 30x9.5x15 tires. If you notice up front with the stock springs you are almost riding on your bumpstops... I bet your axle is very clean where they are constantly hitting the bump stop... By putting on a small lift and/or a newer designed spring with teflon like lubrication pads you get away from that bump stop and remove the stiction caused by old crappy leafs that have steel on steel contact. The 88.5 and newer Samurai have better spring packs if you do not want any lift from the springs.

Shocks are very imprtant too... Don't get the $15 dollar Napa 'red rider' stuff... go for some nice shocks and you will not regret it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes...

-Eric

one of the best things i did was let some air out of my tires.  these rigs are really light and dont require the standard 30 psi and above. i run mine at 20-25. 

Can a sammy be made to ride "nice?" I mean like compared to what? A railroad car?  Kidding of course, but that's what keeps a lot of us in IFS rigs. That and buick don't make a real 4wd for us old guys. Oh wait, I forgot, there's always Land Rover!

For simple and effective I'd suggest either getting the medium duty Old man emu springs or the Calmini 2" S/R kit. The key part is to get some good shocks such as Bilsteins.... Either lift suggested will make your Samurai large enough for 30x9.5x15 tires. If you notice up front with the stock springs you are almost riding on your bumpstops... I bet your axle is very clean where they are constantly hitting the bump stop... By putting on a small lift and/or a newer designed spring with teflon like lubrication pads you get away from that bump stop and remove the stiction caused by old crappy leafs that have steel on steel contact. The 88.5 and newer Samurai have better spring packs if you do not want any lift from the springs.

Shocks are very imprtant too... Don't get the $15 dollar Napa 'red rider' stuff... go for some nice shocks and you will not regret it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes...

-Eric

The best suggestion for the $$$ made. A good shock and radial tire combo on any vehicle will improve the ride quality! You can make a gazillion more costly mods but the shock /tire combo will give you the most inexpensive effective statisfaction.