Ugh, Fooook driving a Power Wagon in SF. We did that once when the wife had an on-site for her job at Salesforce and it sucked, and we were just driving a 1500 on 35's at the time. Not to mention, it took us an hour and a half to get out of the city during traffic and go something like 2 miles.
Thank god we're remote workers. You poor soul.
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I don't have any mods on my Airstream beside 505 Watts of Solar, 400 Amp Hours of Lithiums and I replaced the 15 inch shitty tires for 16 inch LT Michelins E-Rated, none of that explody trailer tire shit with speed limits everyone exceeds and has blowouts.
We have one Honda 2500eu or something another geni. When I upgraded to lithiums I pretty much stopped using it all together. Lithiums are TITS.
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I'm probably forgetting other stuff but I haven't had coffee and my work is already annoying me.
Zlaayer wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:05 am
Sound advice. I've already read a lot of the threads on this forum but it has been around for a while so there's a lot to go through.
I checked out the Thuren site. Man I really need to bone up on suspension components. I consider myself a pretty astute guy but my lack of mechanical knowledge is palpable. It seems like such a waste to buy a PW for its offroad capability then replace the suspension immediately. And what do you do with the stock parts? Seems like the kind of decision I would like to make prior to driving the truck. I'd rather sell stock wheels, tires, and suspension components unused rather than try to sell them after I've put a couple thousand miles on 'em.
Well, I keep telling Don he needs to rewrite that stuff. Scaring people off.
So you're sort of right. You're not really replacing EVERYTHING either. Not really. Go back through this thread, as stated, this year we put mostly stock Power Wagons up some of the hardest, most extreme red trails in Moab. And by mostly, the two guys on 33's just had sliders. We had some guys with no sliders, but bigger tires. These trucks are very very capable.
There are a few things, that stand out to me as sucking though. The front bump stops suck and might as well be cement blocks. When you hit them, you will think you bent your axle, and you'll probably have cracked at least one or two of your front teeth. Boogie bumps seem....mmmm... kind of expensive. But WOW, amazing improvement once installed. You'll never again know if you hit the front bumps. Ever. I can't tell anymore. I used to be able to tell all the time, and it'd freak me out. And it always hurt.
Lots of us are running the stock wheels, because they are strong and you can fit a 37 on them. But I know a lot of people run a bigger wheel with a different offset. That's a personal decision thing. For me, I know that I will go to beadlocks eventually. So I'm not going to buy a set of methods in the meantime or something. I'll run the stockers until I'm ready for the big leagues. lol
The rear of these trucks have an odd waggle when going down the highway and hitting those gaps in the road. It's hard to describe without actually experiencing it. It's kind of like a sway, but not a sway. I'm probably explaining it terribly.
But Thuren's rear track bar is another excellent upgrade, that really eliminates that and helps tighten things up overall.
Everything else is more of an UPGRADE and not so much as needed to do anything. Like I said, stock trucks are super capable. I have been testing various setups since we got this truck.
Most of the add-on's would be, sliders, transmission skid plate, diff covers, that sort of thing.
The UPGRADES would be shocks, coils, front track bar, boogie bumps, steering stablizer or maybe hydro assist. This is all in the category of "it will be better, but it's not necessary to do stuff, but it will make life a million times better" especially shocks.
Holy hell, the shocks suck. I mean, they're ok. But look at what they put on the Raptor and Colorado ZR2 and then we get mono-tube bilstiens. I really think Ram could do better in this area.
Zlaayer wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 10:05 am
The Thuren kit for 2014+ 2500 KING 2.0 IFP EXTREME seems to take some of the guess work out of selecting suspension components. But there are a few things that concern me. The notes say "
These shocks are still smaller 2.0" diameter with no reservoir to help control heat, so fast higher speed, longer duration bigger bump driving like hot summer desert trips, can easily overheat these shocks. Cooked shock oil is easy to assess and will void warranty if overheated." Ok, how do I assess for overheated shocks?
Also, it says "
The included rear coils springs are quite a bit softer than stock. The ride quality and suspension travel benefit also comes with the drawback of more sag when weight is in the bed, or vertical on the hitch. The rear suspension with our coils will sag with weight similar to a 1/2 ton truck." Could I rectify this with Air Lift airbags to eliminate the droop for towing a travel trailer?
So he has literally copy pasted his warning for the regular 2500 Ram's into the PW section on his site.
I tested this and it's in my build thread (but I think some of my photos are broken) and Thuren's coil rate is better and offers a better ride overall, but in terms of squat, it's almost identical to the factory PW coils.
Now, if you owned a diesel, you'd see a pretty big difference as the coils on the diesel are a lot stiffer. Ours are soft, and our trucks tend to sag. But in comparison, PW coil to Thuren coil, I think the difference was like a quarter of an inch in squat. It was so close with various weights. You wouldn't be able to tell without a ruler.
The truth is, the PW already sort of handles weight like a half ton max payload truck.
So going back to upgrades, the shocks and coils have been one of the best investments to date on my truck. Like, life changingly great. But I've driven this truck for awhile without them.
You're not really replacing all the suspension. I know the older trucks, you had to swap out all the steering and stuff. On these trucks, there is no need to do IMMEDIATE upgrades.
Hell, you can take a stock PW and slap 37's on it without doing anything if you can live with some rubbing and a little trimming. Although it's easier to run 35's out of the gate, as most AT's won't rub at all and won't require trimming.
This is why most folks do armor and tires around here and as your needs/wants increase you step into the bigger upgrades.
Although there are a few newcomers who just put shit on their brand new trucks without ever knowing what their trucks were capable of beforehand.
I'm definitely in the get to know the truck and yourself before you upgrade the truck camp.