50MM IRONMAN 4X4 GEN4 JIMNY LIFT (concerns)

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum and I come to you in a time of great need, I need some of you jimmy veterans to give me some technical advice on what to do with my first jimmy, and first car. (below I've attached an image)

There are two retailers in Kuwait, where I live, that sell Jimny accessories, one sells the old man emu 40mm lift kit, and the other, the 50mm Ironman 4x4 kit, anyway- I ordered the old man emu kit initially but cancelled after a friend- who owns a nearly fully modified jimny told me that it doesn't come with a steering dampener, or they don't sell it with one rather. This is problematic for me as driving on extremely soft sand in the desert for extended periods of time in the jimny, can loosen the steering column and make some awful sounds in the process, as is with my experience.

I canceled my order of the old man emu kit, and opted for the ironman4x4 kit but have yet to pay or install it, and after digging through this forum I'm getting second thoughts, based on other peoples experiences.

I'm worried that giving it a lift will affect it's performance negatively, adding larger tires paired with the lift might affect gearing and fuel consumption, which for me, the jimny is my daily driver, and I would say it's on road for about 80 percent of the time. My main reasoning for getting the lift would be to mitigate the terrible roads here, road bumps, pot holes, etc, make it some what laborious to drive the jimny, so getting better coils, shocks, and bushes would fix that issue.

Moreover, when I do go offroading, I often times have to follow washboard roads, which in the jimny's stock form, is unbearable, it feels like a washing machine and that the rear end of the car is going to take off if I drive faster than 40km/h (as seen here)

So bearing all this in mind, my problem is that I want the jimny to be more comfortable on and offroad without compromising safety or performance. off-roading, the number one problem the jimny faces is the occasionally getting bogged down in sand, and sometimes getting unbogged without any recovery gear can be stress-inducing. Though I think more aggressive tires and a steering dampener can help in that regard, I'm afraid all the extra weight will make it even worse.

Finally, I'll be posting the contents of the entire kit (sold from the retailer, not ironman4x4) and curiously I noticed a lack of extended break lines? I'm not sure, a lot of you know more about the technical aspects of lifts and the jimny in general than me, so bearing all I've said in mind, advice would be greatly, and deeply appreciated, cheers.

Here's the list:



and a few pictures of my car

Your Jimny comes standard with a steering damper, replacing it with an aftermarket one is going to make zero difference.
Both kits are very good and well respected, so you can't really go wrong with either, although I suspect that OME will give you a better ride.
Any increase in tyre size will affect performance and fuel consumption.
Learning the correct tyre pressure for the conditions you drive in will be more important in terms of getting stuck in sand than tyre size.
But, the bigger you go in tyre size (with the correct pressure), the better the vehicle will perform off-road.

I agree with saxj . The OME will probably give the better more subtle ride on washboard. Ive left the original dampener in mine without any adverse effect. I'll change it later if I need to as there are plenty of options.
Tyre pressure is key as mentioned as is carrying some traction boards just in case.
You may benefit from after market device to allow you to retain speed without the electronic management cutting in above 40kph. Driving on sand with the constant random wheel braking is horrible. It does depend on your driving style and how soft that sand gets.

I'm not convinced that any lift will give you the increase in ride comfort you're looking for. As far as I'm aware, all lift kits use a higher spring rate than standard, and that will mean a firmer ride.

I have the OME 40mm lift. And yest it does give you a slightly firmer ride on road, but it can take speed humps much better now. On standard suspension 20 mph was the most you would go over them, I used to go slightly slower. It always seemed to just crash and bang over them, and the rear axle banged down as if you'd driven off a 6 inch step.

With the OME 20 mph just goes over nicely I have even done 30 mph and it does that better than the stock suspension did at 20 mph.

So, although firmer on road the shocks seen to work in a much better way.

So the difference is coming from the shocks, not the springs. Fitting better shocks and keeping the standard springs and ride height seems like the best solution.

Yes, some people have already fitted just the OME shocks and kept everything else standard.