9" vs D44 vs D60

[TJVigilante]

High pinion is good in the front due to the way the gears mesh...going forward with a High pinion front you're applying load to the stronger drive side of the gear teeth rather than the weaker coast side in a low pinion. The opposite is true for the rear. Wheelbase doesn't really make much difference in the front application as the front driveshaft is so much longer than the rear in this application. High pinion would be good for driveline angles in the rear axle but would suffer from the problem I mentioned above. Then again, the angle of the Jeep's powertrain causes the front driveline angle to suffer more because the t-case output for the front is actually angled UP, and a higher pinion helps relieve that angle. You don't get too much ground clearance advantage because the pinion should be angled up anyway and your diff cover mounting flange should be the lowest point of the axle.

I maintain that the front axle isn't seeing anything close to maximum load unless you're going in reverse...because weight distribution going forward pulls weight off of the front axle causing it to lose traction. Going uphill in reverse (Cory) or snatching someone out of a hole in reverse(narrow trail where it's hard to turn around), you'd benefit more from a low pinion axle up front because then you'd be applying maximum force to the front axle on the drive side of the gears.

There are two schools of thought on that and they're both right, you should just determine which option is best for you. Personally I'm going to go for a HP front axle because if someone's stuck bad enough that I'd break my ring gear pulling them out...I'll just winch them.