tyres

im keeping my eyes open.

jason, your 215's, back when you were running the standard jimny; you wrote that they only caused a problem on full compression and that you had 18mm treadblocks. this leaves me thinking that with road tyres with the usual minimal tread depth would be ok.

other than the catching on compression was there any other symptoms associated with larger tyres(lower fuel consumption and poor cornering)?

as i really need some extra hight, but do not want to effect the driving/balance of the car

with the 215x80's in Mud Pattern they were almost 30" tall .. this is very much on the limit of the standard gearing of the Jimny.
They didnt catch on the bodywork, but I did remove the bottom edge of the rear bumper to give clearance as it tended to catch and fill up with mud and stones when offroading.

The handling is affected as with all mods over standard, but it isnt really noticeable .. the jimny doesnt handle at the best of times, just exercise a littl emore caution and youll be fine.
If you want a little extra height, why not think about just fitting a 1" spring spacer block with standard shockers .. easy to do and the result is immediate.
any higher though and you want to be looking at springs and new dampers(although if you dont intend taking advantage of the extra flex in teh suspension, you could always just go for springs and keep your origional dampers if height is your goal.