longarmwj
New member
Holy shit that looks big!! What’s the total amount of lift on that setup???
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ROAM Offroad - JL Development - Front and Rear Bumpers, 4-Link Long Arm, & Side Armor
- Thread starter ROAM
- Start date
Holy shit that looks big!! What’s the total amount of lift on that setup???
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Edwrds
Caught the Bug
ROAM
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Thanks for the interest and support! We'll have more content, info, and pictures up on our site after we're back from EJS.
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Ddays
Hooked
Not trying to be an antagonist here, but I'm sure lots of guys are thinking this so I'll go ahead and ask: Looks like this LA kit loses you quite a bit of ground clearance with those arm mounting points even from stock. Any chance of some close up pics to get better views of them? Got any action shots from EJS?
A.J.
Active Member
I agree. Trying to be nice because they are new and a supporter but that's not going to last forever here. So here's the less politically correct version. That long arm kit looks like something that belongs on an old school monster truck. You only need to look at the EVO version to see the difference. The arms look like they are upside down and the are going to hang up on everything.
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ROAM
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What you're actually looking at on the photo above is our preproduction version which has the rear lower control arms bent downwards to clear the OE rear lower control arm brackets. To clarify, with this version of our JL Long Arm kit, the OE rear control arm brackets do not need to be cut or trimmed at all. Our production JL Long Arm kit has either straight arms or high clearance rear lower control arms. <images attached below>
I've attached a few images below comparing the two versions (preproduction version vs the production high clearance version) and the version that has the control arms bent downwards should clearly show where the rear OE lower control brackets that we're trying to clear are. We did not want to cut up the OE rear control arm brackets while we were perfecting the geometry so that in the case that we still had to test or develop anything that utilized the rear OE control arm mounts they're still there. The production version of our JL Long Arm kit with the straight rear lower control arms will have superior ground clearance (when compared against our preproduction geometry test version) and our high clearance version will improve ground clearance further.
There's nothing wrong with Mel's (EVO) approach for a long arm kit at all, but to us its a design tradeoff that we've made; maybe I'm mistaken, but on Mel's kit only the rear lower control arms were extended but where we've made a design tradeoff is that we wanted to extend all four control arms for what we considered to be a true long arm kit. Not saying that Mel's kit is not, but to us our preproduction version was a geometry test for extending all four rear control arm locations.
Our design constraints and considerations for our JL Long Arm kit design include:
1. Not relocating the fuel tank because the fuel tank is in the way of where you'd want to mount the rear inboard control arms. The best example that I can currently find would be the "Genright JK Elite Coilover Suspension Kit". Its an pretty awesome build but having to delete/relocate both the fuel tank and the stock exhaust system wasn't something that we wanted to do.
2. According to Quadratec, the current best selling long arm kit for the JK that does not require relocating either the exhaust or the fuel tank on a JK is the Rancho LA kit which is a radius arm setup or the Teraflex LCG kit. We wanted to build a 4-Link kit, which in our opinion, has better geometry and articulation qualities when compared to a radius arm kit. The rear lower control arm mounting points are indeed lower than stock on our current JL Long Arm kit, but no more so than a Teraflex JK long arm kit. By lowering the rear lower control arm mounting points, our JL Long Arm kit improves suspension geometry because (when lifted) the control arms are more parallel (to the vehicle) which results in less of a wheelbase change during suspension articulation, less squat during acceleration, and reduced brake dive (as is the case with most long arm kits). Our JL Long Arm kit does not require any exhaust modifications at all.
3. Not requiring anything to be welded onto the axles. Our rear lower control arm brackets use (located by) preexisting bolt holes on the JL frame. They're already strong as is without welding but if they're welded to the frame then they're even stronger. Mel's (EVO) kit, from what it looks like in his video, appears to use a pretty similar mounting location on the JL frame. However, his kit appears to utilize relocation brackets which at least on the video are welded to the axle, which in our case went against our original design constraints. Mel's (EVO) kit does look extremely well built and correctly engineered.
Our production JL Long Arm kit uses straight lower control arms (instead of the ones that bend downwards which clear the OE rear lower control arm mounts) and we've got the option for high clearance arms as well. We'll post more pictures and some videos once we get back from EJS and once we've got some time to sort through some of the content that we've gathered.
Thanks for your patience
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onlyone
Active Member
Welcome Roam! I dig the white letters. You can send me some of those slider/steps. I’ll give you a review. [emoji1303]
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AllAmericanInfidel
Caught the Bug
ScoobyCarolanNC
Active Member
Looks great and the price is right! Your side steps say their rocker guards too? How does that work?
Who else makes one? I haven’t seen any for the jl just curious thanks .
I spoke with you via email so soon as you get the 8” kit I will be able to give some reviews. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of rock here in Louisiana so my rig will Be more geared for mud. I currently have a set of 42” Fury Mt’s ordered right now. It will get abused , but in a different way than most people on here use there rigs. Seems like a great site happy to be a member and hope to learn a lot.
ROAM
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Thanks for the interest and support everyone!
In my opinion, while there are different ways that protection can be added to the actual rocker panels on the JL Body, before heading down that road we should first pose the question of: what are we protecting the rocker panels from? In my opinion, in this case protection should be added to resist rocks strikes (either kicked up by the tires or protruding from the ground) and/or car door strikes (from vehicles parked next to you). By adding side steps (any manufacturer), unless you're being impacted by a door that can clear the side steps (e.g. lifted truck or suv), you're covered already on the door strikes to your rocker panels.
Rock strike and rock impact protection should be addressed by testing. In my opinion, there are two standards to beat for add-on rock impact production, the OE JL Rubicon rock rails (as the base standard) and then an underframe skid plate.
The OE JL Rubicon rock rails are body mounted. While the OE JL Rubicon rock rails should bear the weight of the vehicle (forklift test), they're actually not meant to be load bearing because they're body mounted. The "rock rails" description actually refers to deflecting rocks that are kicked up as opposed to "rock sliders" which are more of an underframe skid plate.
Our JL Side Armor Steps are constructed from mixed 7/32″ and 1/4" (high strength steel brackets) and mixed 1/8" and 5/32" high strength steel (topside outer surfaces) and are seam welded along the step plates. Any impact forces are dispersed and spread across all of the mounting points evenly as opposed to being concentrated in one area.
The primary issue with adding any sort of underframe skid plate meant to protect the frame rails themselves is that you will lose ground clearance where the skid plate is attached. While there are solutions on other vehicles where they're advertised as allowing you to drag your vehicle over rocks and debris, if anyone actually attempts something like that the odds of getting high centered are pretty high. To clarify, in our opinion, avoiding the rocks will be safer than dragging/sliding your Jeep over them. On our JL Side Armor Steps, the mounting brackets sit higher than the lowest part of the OE body mount brackets.
There are also the issues of maintenance, the ability to repair whatever its attached to, and then also if installation can be reversed (in the case that you've leased your JL as opposed to outright ownership). With most of the current rocker guards that attach to the rocker panels by means of either drilling a series of holes on the vehicle rocker panels or using adhesives, in my opinion, water ingress (at the holes drilled), water retention (in the gap between the rocker panel and the product attached to the rocker panels), how applied forces are absorbed/spread/dispersed (shear vs compression, e.g. on a sheet of metal attached to the rocker panel, how thick is the metal and if it dents is it just transferring the impact to the rocker in a localized area, dimple to dimple), and if a serious enough force was applied, can the underlying area be repaired.
We've got both a body mounted version and a frame mounted version of our JL side steps: The ROAM JL Side Armor Steps which are body mounted and the ROAM JL Rock Sliders which are frame mounted. Our JL Side Armor Steps utilizes the same attachment points as the OE JL Rubicon rock rails. Our JL Rock Sliders utilizes preexisting bolt locations on the OE JL vehicle frame. Both our JL Side Armor Steps and our JL Rock Sliders do not require drilling or cutting or welding at all for installation and are designed to bear the weight of the vehicle (forklift test). Our JL Side Armor Steps are in production but we're still at least another few weeks out before our JL Rock Sliders will be committed to production. We're still testing our JL Rock Sliders to see if they're an improvement over our JL Side Armor Steps.
The Great Grape Ape said:
The Great Grape Ape said:
What sets our design, build process, and quality apart isn't just how strong our JL Side Armor Steps are, but rather how they're designed and built. They're not just straight square tubes, but profiled and precision laser cut on the interior edge to evenly and consistently follow the curvature of the vehicle. While they're built to carry the weight of the vehicle (forklift test), in my opinion, the forklift test should not be the defining benchmark for strength because the OE JL Rubicon Rock Rails will also carry the weight of the vehicle during the forklift test. Our side steps feature heavy duty 7/32" high strength steel brackets and mixed 1/8" and 5/32" high strength steel superstructure construction (topside outer surfaces). I've attached an image below showing the inside profile of our JL Side Armor Steps.
Thanks for the interest and support!
We're still a few weeks out from releasing our 6" and 8" JL Long Arm suspension systems. We have a policy of testing everything on our own development and demo vehicles so what our customers receive will be perfect. We're still in the process of sorting through how much actual suspension travel we can get out of a set of coilovers that a 3rd party is currently co-developing with us. The design specifications call for: lets say if we were adding 4 inches of lift to a vehicle then we also need to add at least 4" of suspension travel so you're not losing negative suspension travel and articulation.
Stay tuned for updates!
Thanks for support!
When we're caught back up on production lets talk
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ROAM JL Side Armor Steps 002.jpg -
ROAM JL Side Armor Steps 003.jpg -
ROAM JL Side Armor Steps 004.jpg -
ROAM JL Side Armor Steps 005.jpg -
ROAM JL Rock Sliders 001.jpg -
ROAM JL Rock Sliders 002.jpg -
ROAM JL Rock Sliders 003.jpg -
ROAM - JL Side Armor Steps 001.jpg -
ROAM - JL Side Armor Steps 004.jpg -
ROAM - JL Front Bumper and Side Armor Steps 005.jpg
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NFRs2000NYC
Caught the Bug
I am a huge fan of your rear bumper design. It gives you the benefits of the bumperless jeep clearance, but with a finished look and a great amount of function as well. I love the extra hitch options, but what's stopping me is the separate linkage mechanism. In your future renditions, I'd love to see a tail-gate linked carrier, as well as expansion options, like a top of the tire basket, or a way to mount 2 rotopax units. I also absolutely love the side rails, especially the lighted steps, but would really want to have them mount to the frame and be able to take a hit without buckling into the body. I do love the fact that they are tight to the body and hide the pinch seam. Would be cool to see you guys make a video showcasing how much of a beating they can take, so we can gauge if they would work for our application. :thumb:
VeruGE*144
Caught the Bug
So how do you like the bumpers? It’s been over 2 months now, any updates?
HayBuiltJLU
New member
Im really hoping their rear bumper becomes available soon, I really like the low profile design with hitches included!!
Very interested in ROAM products. Please keep us updated on your experience with the lift if possible. Thanks!
Will do it’s being installed this week.