More of a general question I suppose.  At what point on a Samurai lift should one start thinking about U-joint reliability and driveshaft angles.

Reason I am asking is i have 3" Calmini lift springs but my axles have SPOA pads.  My thought is someone had SPOA then reverted back.  Looks like just swapping back to SPOA gives about 4-4.5 inches.  That about + - 7" total on this rig.  I am only running 31" rubber so i dont "need" any more lift... just qurious.  Another bit of wheel well clearance would give it a better stance... and i wont use a shackle lift.
 

The old rule of thumb is 6" of lift and then it starts getting expensive. If you just need a little more clearance on the bulkhead then maybe moving the axle forward an inch would do the job.

Here is a good read about lift and the 6" rule :
http://acksfaq.com/sixinchrule.htm

Here is a good read about lift and the 6" rule :
http://acksfaq.com/sixinchrule.htm

Good article.

Not that I am interested but if you went higher than 6-8" your next major challenge would be lowering the xfer case i suppose?  You would again reach a max angle on the front xfer driveshaft along the way.

I just see a lot of really tall trucks and wonder how they handle shaft angles. What do these giant shadetree Ford/Chevy guys do

they stretch their rigs out to about twice the length of a zuk. LOL

the Sami has very short drive shafts when compared to the big ford/chevy/dodge trucks.
So a small lift on a Sami is already going to put a major angle on the driveshaft.

I have thought about dropping my transfer case a small bit but haven't done it yet. To drop it very much a person would have to fabricate all new mounts.

Here is what I was thinking about trying for dropping the t-case (have not tried it yet and not sure I will) :
With my 1.6 16v engine swap, from Petroworks, they drop the engine and transmission 3/4" but the t-case stays put. The Polaris t-case mount ( http://www.zukikrawlers.com/showthread.php?t=34639&highlight=polaris ) is abit over 1/4" shorter than the stock mount. So right now I am setup with a 3/4" difference as I have washers spacing the Polaris mount up to the stock mount height. If I took the washers out and dropped the t-case +1/4" it would have the t-case and transmission/engine at a -1/2" difference..... not sure that the 1/4" is worth it or not, but soemthing I have thought about.
A buddy is trying this idea as of two days ago on his Sami.... so no feedback yet.

So right now I am setup with a 3/4" difference as I have washers spacing the Polaris mount up to the stock mount height. If I took the washers out and dropped the t-case +1/4" it would have the t-case and transmission/engine at a -1/2" difference..... not sure that the 1/4" is worth it or not, but soemthing I have thought about.
A buddy is trying this idea as of two days ago on his Sami.... so no feedback yet.

Interesting.  Mount 'extensions' would not be too bad to fab I dont think... although I have not climbed under my rig since this topic.

Me and my bud (Light) are trying to comprehend this. If you have the golden rule of max 6" of lift on your sami. Then you lower your tcase... say 1 inch. You would really only be able to gaining 1 more inch of possible lift correct? In other words its a 1 to 1 ratio. I guess without lowering your engine/tranny, you will be limited at the next point by the angle of the trans-to-tcase driveshaft.