Update
A couple of follow up items:
First, since picking up the vehicle in February, I have had a chance to thoroughly wring out the Phase II set up on some great hard core rides, and I must say, the difference between Phase I and II is not just incremental, but
transformational! Driving the same lines I did on 37s with the 40s felt like cheating! With the added clearance and beefy axles, I find myself much more confident taking the hard lines. Walked right up obstacles like Soup Bowl on first attempt. I find my driving skills are the limiting factor in most cases -- guess I'll need to keep practicing
Second, just as the off-road capability increase was more than incremental, so was the decrease in gas mileage :shock:.........went from 14.4 average to 12.0! This is my daily driver as well, but since my commute is only 7 miles, I have no problem taking the JK to work every day :yup:
Third, I learned a lesson about pushing schedule on a project of this magnitude. I love the work that Offroad Evolution has done for me over the years and I do not fault them for a couple of issues that escaped their shop, since I was pushing them for completion -- they bent over backwards to accommodate my expediting them to make a planned group run. The first issue was a pinhole leak in one of the 90-deg elbow connectors on the PSC ram cylinder. The hole was so tiny, that it was not even visible, but under the high pressure near full lock, hydraulic fluid sprayed like crazy. The pinhole was caused by a very slight rub from the drag link -- easy to miss, but fortunately easy to fix. The other more serious issue was the modification to my airbox to accommodate the PSC reservoir hoses. To clear the hoses, the bottom of the airbox was cut out. This defeated my snorkel and so, I should have at least been consulted. I discovered the issue when I changed the air filter and saw the gaping hole in the bottom of the airbox. The new sales manager Zan (Drew is no longer with ORE), took care of it.
While at ORE, they also took care of another issue. My Dynatrac PR80 developed a leaky airlocker (ARB) -- internal to the pumpkin. Being that the axle was just installed this past Feb, Dynatrac took care of it. ORE and Dynatrac coordinated the repair and had things resolved in 24 hours -- awesome. Big shout out to Jim and the crew at Dynatrac :rock:
Not sure how others with AEV snorkels and PSC ram assist have addressed the airbox clearance issue, but here's how ORE addressed it and may offer an option for others considering this same issue:
Installed a dual-battery tray and used the second battery location for the PSC reservoir:
Now I was going to go with a dual battery set-up, however, when I do the Hemi conversion, there'll be a lot of re-arranging things under the hood, and so I will incorporate dual battery set up then :thumb:
Again, I'm not calling out ORE here, rather this is a lesson about pressuring a shop that works hard to accommodate (sometimes unrealistic) customer expectations. Mel himself rebuilt my front King bypass shocks while they took care of the airbox situation and leaky airlocker. Great customer service!
