Too bad I am late to this thread.
I under stand why you chose to go the route you did, and I am not going to slam you for your choice.
Having an honest, well documented experience with this lift in one place will help another Jeep owner down the road.
I have a JBA 2.5" lift, and was the KA prototype for it. Which really does not matter in this situation.
My point of mentioning being the prototype for the JBA 2.5" lift is it revealed several flaws in the initial design. It took several tries to get things worked out. No lift is perfect from the get go, but Marlin kept working with me to make it right. In the end it is a very nice lift. Not many places will do that for you.
The other reason I mentioned my being the prototype is I did a complete install write up, with detailed Pics, torque Specs, and tools used, which is posted here for anyone to down-load and print out. The instructions are not perfect by any means, and I have noted things I would have done different, but over all I believe they are very detailed.
Anyway, for those out there, even if you are not going with a JBA lift, many of the instructions are similar and will assist you in doing your install.
They can be found here.
HOW TO: 2.5 Inch JBA LiftLooking forward to your further honest updates on this lift as time goes by.