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Racing suspension is here!!!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter Diesel Dan
- Start Date
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies To the point: Click this link and check out the Front Page News story(ies) where we are tracking the introduction of the 2025 Ram HD trucks.
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- Status
Lee R- PM on the way. Dr. K- thanks for the link. Blair- If I had won "best in show" at MM, you KNOW that everybody would see it in my signature... 
Keep us posted on the 19. 5s. Are you guys going to install the kit, or the guy Kent recommended in SJ?
Greg
Keep us posted on the 19. 5s. Are you guys going to install the kit, or the guy Kent recommended in SJ?Greg
Originally posted by Doubleclutch
Lee R- PM on the way. Dr. K- thanks for the link. Blair- If I had won "best in show" at MM, you KNOW that everybody would see it in my signature...
Greg
Hey Greg, The kit is going on a friend of mine's truck and it will be installed by the guy Kent recommended in SJ. I will check it out when it is done very carefully because I have a lot of time invested in this truck. I put some 19. 5's on my truck last week as well so if this works out who know's what will happen to my truck next.
What the heck is a Best Of Show.
I wish I would have won that in the old days when you used to get a truck load of prizes for it but I guess it still means the same thing.Mr. Golden,
Thanks for posting those photos. I apologize for not responding sooner. We've been swamped.
I think your control arms look pretty beefy and well made. The design is more complex than the control arms we've made in the past. We've just used straight tubing. Your control arms look really well engineered because of the way in which the diameter changes at the ends. Without inspecting them closely I can't determine how they were made, but I like the shape. It's an inherently strong design - especially if they started as a thick-walled piece of tubing and were turned down on the ends with a lathe. Your control arms remind me of certain airplane parts, such as aileron actuating rods and fuel-control arms. They all look exactly like your control arms. In aerospace, the machinist starts with a thick piece of stock then turns down the ends to the OD (outside diameter) of the spherical bearing stud base. The stud and nut allow precise adjustment of the overall length. If your control arms were turned on a lathe you should be able to see faint machine marks running around the area where the diameter decreases. If Skyjacker made yours this way, then I'm very impressed with their product. I just took a look at some web photos of what they sell and it appears that they offer several grades of control arms. One with bushings, one with a bushing and heim, and your style with two heims. Guess which one I like best? You were right if you gussed the control arm with one heim and one bushing. We've never marketed a control arm, but if we do, it will be of this design. It will give more free articulation and still provide cushioning for the mounts. Aside from all that, what really matters is how your parts work on your truck. If your control arms work well for you, then that's all that really matters. It doesn't matter what brand of heims are used or who made them; if they work well for you, then they're the correct part. I know one thing for sure - for hard use, the arms you have are much better than the OE arms with which your truck was formerly equipped. Just keep an eye on the rear lower arm mounts. The flange on the outboard side is where we've broken them - on the 2000 model. A small crack develops at the bolt hole and spreads downward. We've also bent them, but that's another issue. Please don't be alarmed by this or feel that your truck has an Achilles heel. It doesn't. Those parts look very well made and won't damage your truck unless you subject it to horrendous abuse. By "horrendous abuse" I mean a high-speed off-road Baja scenario like this: 60 mph. down hill into a hard-packed wash out that puts enough positive G on the truck to compress half the suspension travel, then, in order to raise the front just a bit to take the curb-sized square-edged hit that marks the point where the wash out turns up hill, you _add_ throttle and BAM! Full bottom at 60+ mph - the shocks straining with all they have to keep the shaft speed down. This is exactly the type of situation where I hear the little "tink" sound that indicates I've just cracked something on the truck. In order to put a crack in your mounting brackets you've got to do something like this 10 or 20 times - or once with OE suspension. When we went back to rubber bushings in OE style control arms, we stopped cracking mounts. In a couple of the our custom project trucks we retained the heims and just reinforced the lower mounts by way of a piece of 3/16" plate TIG welded to the outboard side. Hope this helps!
NVR FNSH,
My background eh? Well, I have a PhD in vehicle mangling from the Univerisdad National de San Luis Gonzaga. My doctoral dissertation was entitled: "How to Make a Business out of Breaking a Lot of Parts. " haha! Just kidding around a bit.
Seriously, though, I've got kind of a strange background. I've been involved in motorsports since I was a kid - riding and racing dirt bikes since the age of 5. In the 80's I raced district 37 AMA in the So Cal deserts, then graduated to the Big Leagues of Baja in the mid 90's. I've raced in the Pro class for six years and have ridden on world-class teams, winning once and placing in the top five in class in four SCORE Baja 1000's. I have several top three finishes in the Baja 500 (including a solo ride in '98 that I think my body is still recovering from!) and several San Felipe 250 wins (one solo 1st in class and fifth overall) and top three finishes. I also have several overall wins and top ten finishes in Mexican Gran Prix's and long distance off-road races.
I also have an aviation background. For ten years I was a Marine Officer - a KC-130 Aircraft Commander.
My formal education has nothing to do with suspension or even engineering for that matter. I even have a post-graduate degree from the Sorbonne if you can believe it! haha!
So, you may be wondering, "why a pilot, why a motorcycle guy, why automotive suspension, why Dodge, why T. Rex Engineering?"
As a motorcycle guy with a lot of Baja saddle time, I've got a highly sensitive, well tuned "butt-meter. " Suspension is infinitely more important to the handling of a motorcycle than a truck. The slightest adjustment or shift in suspension performance on a motorcyle can make the difference between being in control and being dangerously out of control. So over the years, my seat-of-the-pants perception (butt-meter) has been highly refined. I can drive in a truck and tell you in five minutes if you've got too much low-speed compression dampening and not enough high-speed rebound. I've been adjusting and tuning suspension on race motorcycles for almost 20 of my 36 years. Guess what a King shock is? It's a giant motorcycle shock. Guess who directs all our valving specifics, spring rates and does all the R and D (i. e. breaking stuff!)? Mr. Kent Kroeker.
So why Dodge? That has to do purely with design. When we set out on this project a couple of years ago, we chose Dodge because of its advanced 5 link front end. You can do so much more with it than you ever could with a leaf sprung or IFS front end. It quite literally has the best design. It combines the inherent strength and reliability of a solid axle with the steering precision and consistent articulation of IFS.
When we had this crazy idea that we were going to try to make production vehicles handle like off-road race cars, Dodge was the only choice. And the diesel engine was the best powerplant because Dodge sells more trucks equipped with the CTD than the gas engine. I've heard that 70% of their 2500 and 3500 trucks are sold with the CTD option.
We started with complex cutting and fabricating of coil-overs. Then we kept on refining and refining until our system has become totally bolt on. We were told by many people that what we've accomplished couldn't be done. But we did it and it works great and, as of today, we've sold everything we've produced and have a lot of amazed customers out there.
Anyway, when I talk about what works and what doesn't in these posts, I'm not speaking from the standpoint of a formally educated engineer. As a former military pilot I've had some formal training in engineering _aspects_, but I'm not an engineer and would never claim to be one. Most of what I've learned about automotive engineering has come from experience. When I discuss things in this forum I'm just recounting our _experience_ and that's all. I hope I've made that clear. It's just what we've learned from trial and error. We're not here to say, "we're the best and the greatest and the most knowledgeable. " We are here to relate what we've learned and learn from others. That's how we get better at what we do.
Many people feel that we have an extraordinary product. It's kind of obvious, since nothing like what we're doing has ever been done for the Dodge Ram. But we're learning more all the time. For example, this afternoon we will ship out a suspension system for a guy who is running commercial wheels and tires. I have no idea if it's going to work well for him. I know it will be better than his current suspension, but the question remains: will it be $3,500. 00 better? With normal tires and wheels, I know it's worth the money. That's why I've sold 10 systems in the last couple of weeks. But this is going to be an experiment, R and D, trial and error, whatever you want to call it; and we're going to learn from it and I'm going to recount with absolute candor what we learn on this post.
Have a great weekend!
Best Regards,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Thanks for posting those photos. I apologize for not responding sooner. We've been swamped.
I think your control arms look pretty beefy and well made. The design is more complex than the control arms we've made in the past. We've just used straight tubing. Your control arms look really well engineered because of the way in which the diameter changes at the ends. Without inspecting them closely I can't determine how they were made, but I like the shape. It's an inherently strong design - especially if they started as a thick-walled piece of tubing and were turned down on the ends with a lathe. Your control arms remind me of certain airplane parts, such as aileron actuating rods and fuel-control arms. They all look exactly like your control arms. In aerospace, the machinist starts with a thick piece of stock then turns down the ends to the OD (outside diameter) of the spherical bearing stud base. The stud and nut allow precise adjustment of the overall length. If your control arms were turned on a lathe you should be able to see faint machine marks running around the area where the diameter decreases. If Skyjacker made yours this way, then I'm very impressed with their product. I just took a look at some web photos of what they sell and it appears that they offer several grades of control arms. One with bushings, one with a bushing and heim, and your style with two heims. Guess which one I like best? You were right if you gussed the control arm with one heim and one bushing. We've never marketed a control arm, but if we do, it will be of this design. It will give more free articulation and still provide cushioning for the mounts. Aside from all that, what really matters is how your parts work on your truck. If your control arms work well for you, then that's all that really matters. It doesn't matter what brand of heims are used or who made them; if they work well for you, then they're the correct part. I know one thing for sure - for hard use, the arms you have are much better than the OE arms with which your truck was formerly equipped. Just keep an eye on the rear lower arm mounts. The flange on the outboard side is where we've broken them - on the 2000 model. A small crack develops at the bolt hole and spreads downward. We've also bent them, but that's another issue. Please don't be alarmed by this or feel that your truck has an Achilles heel. It doesn't. Those parts look very well made and won't damage your truck unless you subject it to horrendous abuse. By "horrendous abuse" I mean a high-speed off-road Baja scenario like this: 60 mph. down hill into a hard-packed wash out that puts enough positive G on the truck to compress half the suspension travel, then, in order to raise the front just a bit to take the curb-sized square-edged hit that marks the point where the wash out turns up hill, you _add_ throttle and BAM! Full bottom at 60+ mph - the shocks straining with all they have to keep the shaft speed down. This is exactly the type of situation where I hear the little "tink" sound that indicates I've just cracked something on the truck. In order to put a crack in your mounting brackets you've got to do something like this 10 or 20 times - or once with OE suspension. When we went back to rubber bushings in OE style control arms, we stopped cracking mounts. In a couple of the our custom project trucks we retained the heims and just reinforced the lower mounts by way of a piece of 3/16" plate TIG welded to the outboard side. Hope this helps!
NVR FNSH,
My background eh? Well, I have a PhD in vehicle mangling from the Univerisdad National de San Luis Gonzaga. My doctoral dissertation was entitled: "How to Make a Business out of Breaking a Lot of Parts. " haha! Just kidding around a bit.
Seriously, though, I've got kind of a strange background. I've been involved in motorsports since I was a kid - riding and racing dirt bikes since the age of 5. In the 80's I raced district 37 AMA in the So Cal deserts, then graduated to the Big Leagues of Baja in the mid 90's. I've raced in the Pro class for six years and have ridden on world-class teams, winning once and placing in the top five in class in four SCORE Baja 1000's. I have several top three finishes in the Baja 500 (including a solo ride in '98 that I think my body is still recovering from!) and several San Felipe 250 wins (one solo 1st in class and fifth overall) and top three finishes. I also have several overall wins and top ten finishes in Mexican Gran Prix's and long distance off-road races.
I also have an aviation background. For ten years I was a Marine Officer - a KC-130 Aircraft Commander.
My formal education has nothing to do with suspension or even engineering for that matter. I even have a post-graduate degree from the Sorbonne if you can believe it! haha!
So, you may be wondering, "why a pilot, why a motorcycle guy, why automotive suspension, why Dodge, why T. Rex Engineering?"
As a motorcycle guy with a lot of Baja saddle time, I've got a highly sensitive, well tuned "butt-meter. " Suspension is infinitely more important to the handling of a motorcycle than a truck. The slightest adjustment or shift in suspension performance on a motorcyle can make the difference between being in control and being dangerously out of control. So over the years, my seat-of-the-pants perception (butt-meter) has been highly refined. I can drive in a truck and tell you in five minutes if you've got too much low-speed compression dampening and not enough high-speed rebound. I've been adjusting and tuning suspension on race motorcycles for almost 20 of my 36 years. Guess what a King shock is? It's a giant motorcycle shock. Guess who directs all our valving specifics, spring rates and does all the R and D (i. e. breaking stuff!)? Mr. Kent Kroeker.
So why Dodge? That has to do purely with design. When we set out on this project a couple of years ago, we chose Dodge because of its advanced 5 link front end. You can do so much more with it than you ever could with a leaf sprung or IFS front end. It quite literally has the best design. It combines the inherent strength and reliability of a solid axle with the steering precision and consistent articulation of IFS.
When we had this crazy idea that we were going to try to make production vehicles handle like off-road race cars, Dodge was the only choice. And the diesel engine was the best powerplant because Dodge sells more trucks equipped with the CTD than the gas engine. I've heard that 70% of their 2500 and 3500 trucks are sold with the CTD option.
We started with complex cutting and fabricating of coil-overs. Then we kept on refining and refining until our system has become totally bolt on. We were told by many people that what we've accomplished couldn't be done. But we did it and it works great and, as of today, we've sold everything we've produced and have a lot of amazed customers out there.
Anyway, when I talk about what works and what doesn't in these posts, I'm not speaking from the standpoint of a formally educated engineer. As a former military pilot I've had some formal training in engineering _aspects_, but I'm not an engineer and would never claim to be one. Most of what I've learned about automotive engineering has come from experience. When I discuss things in this forum I'm just recounting our _experience_ and that's all. I hope I've made that clear. It's just what we've learned from trial and error. We're not here to say, "we're the best and the greatest and the most knowledgeable. " We are here to relate what we've learned and learn from others. That's how we get better at what we do.
Many people feel that we have an extraordinary product. It's kind of obvious, since nothing like what we're doing has ever been done for the Dodge Ram. But we're learning more all the time. For example, this afternoon we will ship out a suspension system for a guy who is running commercial wheels and tires. I have no idea if it's going to work well for him. I know it will be better than his current suspension, but the question remains: will it be $3,500. 00 better? With normal tires and wheels, I know it's worth the money. That's why I've sold 10 systems in the last couple of weeks. But this is going to be an experiment, R and D, trial and error, whatever you want to call it; and we're going to learn from it and I'm going to recount with absolute candor what we learn on this post.
Have a great weekend!
Best Regards,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Last edited:
So,, You are saying,, You have a nice Butt?
Where is "3atatime" when you need her... . ?
Kent. I didn't see this one answered, I know you are swamped, but I have a truck with a 6" SkyJacker system, one of the early lifts by Skyjacker. I was wanting to know What it would take to install your system on a truck that all ready has a "high" lift on it.
Do you have any type of "trade-ins" I like the heigth of the truck, but the ride is HORRIBLE,, I want a 4wd lift that I could actually use,, and believe me,, I use my trucks.
It sounds like you abuse your trucks as much as I do.
Merrick Cummings Jr
" I like the heigth of the truck, but the ride is HORRIBLE,, I want a 4wd lift that I could actually use,, and believe me,, I use my trucks. "
MCummings- a friend of mine got an early Skyjacker lift on his '77 4x4 Dodge. How often do you have to change out headlights? Probably not nearly as often- they've improved a whole lot over the years, but it made an impression on me.
Greg
MCummings- a friend of mine got an early Skyjacker lift on his '77 4x4 Dodge. How often do you have to change out headlights?
Probably not nearly as often- they've improved a whole lot over the years, but it made an impression on me. Greg
Mr. Cummings,
Are you getting fresh with me? hahah! My butt-meter is no laughing matter! It's taken years of abuse to get it to its current degree of calibration. Can you imagine what this part of the anatomy looks like after 500 miles of non-stop Baja? Ever see a baboon's butt at the zoo? Nasty, swollen, red, white and blue. I shudder just thinking about it. That's why many moto-guys call this phenomenon, "monkey-butt" - a horrible affliction - a bad enough case of it will make anyone get really serious about their suspension. haha!
As for your lift kit... Hmmmm... Perhaps I've been avoiding the issue because it's kind of a tough one to tackle. Generally speaking, we do not make it possible to add our system to a truck that already has a lift kit installed. You would think it would be easy because, theoretically, all I would need to do is get the compressed and extended length of the shocks you're currently running and try match those as closely as possible with some racing shocks and our mounting system. Here are the problems:
I have no idea what spring rate you've got in front.
I have no idea what you've done to your steering geometry with dropped pitman arms, longer control arms, track bars and such.
I have no idea what your rear spring rate is - if you're using add-a-leafs, a replacement leaf pack or lift blocks.
These are important questions because if we just bolt on a longer set of shocks, your ride still might be horrible because the shocks weren't designed or valved to work with your springs. If we start with OE it's great because we just replace certain parts with certain components that have been designed to work together. I know all the numbers and angles of the OE suspension because we've measured it all or had it tested. And I know all the numbers and angles of our suspension because we designed it. I have data to work with. I have no idea what Skyjacker's numbers are.
I can't be sure that big King 2. 5's won't hit the spring bucket somewhere. Your control arms move your axle on an arc, so they move the shock fore and aft. The track bar arrangement moves the shock left to right. So when your suspension moves up and down, the shock is actually moving within the 4" ID spring bucket in a circular motion - that's why the factory mounts it with a stem on top. If you move the lower shock mount 6" farther from the upper shock mount, the size of that circle changes. [for a given amount of articulation it gets smaller, but if your articulation increases, it gets bigger] How can we be sure that the shock won't hit somewhere? If your control arms are not moving in an OE sized (and located) arc and your track bar isn't moving within OE parameters, you may have problems with a big shock in your spring bucket. I haven't tested it, so I don't know if it will work.
Can we sell you some longer shocks - essentially a T. Rex System modified to fit your truck? The answer is yes. Do we like to do that? No. If I sell you a totally custom system for your truck, you'll be calling back, saying your ride is still harsh. Why? Because your springs are probably not soft enough to allow the shock to do what shocks do - which is essentially to transform kinetic energy (movement) into heat - basically the same thing your brakes do. Our philosophy about suspension is this: use a spring that is just stiff enough to support the truck correctly, then control all articulation with hydraulics. Some suspension designers prefer to do things differently but our philosophy seems to work best for this truck. If you tow or carry heavy loads, you've got to keep your rear springs, so we can make your truck much better but we can't make the truck _perfect_ - it's a pickup truck - designed to pick things up and take them places - so it must be a compromise. Anyway, the point is that the springs have to allow articulation at a certain rate - measured in pounds per inch. If I know what rate that is, then I can determine what kind of valving to use. If that rate is too high (as with most lift kits) then there's nothing that will help your ride because the suspension doesn't move - it just hits bumps and deflects the chassis upward, giving you that harsh feel.
If you have a six inch lift, that lift may have been achieved by stiffening springs. Expecting high quality dampeners to bring your ride back into the green arc - so your personal butt-meter (believe it or not, everyone has one!) isn't constantly red-lined, would be kind of like adding $20,000 dollars worth of carbon fiber fender flares, spoilers, wings and ground effects to a Honda Civic and expecting it to be a race car. Ain't gonna happen.
Every day we get about 3- 5 calls from guys asking for "just the rear shocks," or "just the front springs. " I tell these guys that I would love to sell them parts, but it's not going to change the ride enough to fix their problems. Suspension all works together. Springs alone don't help much. Changing out the shocks and retaining the OE springs helps significantly, but it's still not as good as it can be. Adding good shocks to bad springs won't be worth the money. We've done this for guys with show trucks who want the latest, trickest thing and don't care about the ride. But we're really about function and would love to see you content with the way your truck performs.
My question to you is: Why do you want to retain a six inch lift? What good is it doing you? Do you want to keep it just because you spent money to buy it? Like suffering through a bad movie because you paid for the ticket? Are you running tires bigger than 35-37"? If you are, no matter what suspension you use, your truck won't ride as well as it could due to all the unsprung weight or the large, non-compliant bias-ply tires.
I'm sorry, but we don't take trade-in lift kits. We can't resell them or use them for anything, since nobody we deal with wants them.
If you have a show truck or are from Texas or Louisiana, where you better have a big, gnarly truck or you'll never get a date, we understand. [little joke there!] We're certainly willing to work with you on your project, or simply sell you parts and adjust them as required. Unfortunately it will end up costing you even more than if you bought our system with springs included because most everything will have to be custom designed. Our recommendation is to ditch your lift and start over. It will be the most direct route to the ultra high performance our suspension system provides.
Hope this helps!
Best Regards,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Are you getting fresh with me? hahah! My butt-meter is no laughing matter! It's taken years of abuse to get it to its current degree of calibration. Can you imagine what this part of the anatomy looks like after 500 miles of non-stop Baja? Ever see a baboon's butt at the zoo? Nasty, swollen, red, white and blue. I shudder just thinking about it. That's why many moto-guys call this phenomenon, "monkey-butt" - a horrible affliction - a bad enough case of it will make anyone get really serious about their suspension. haha!
As for your lift kit... Hmmmm... Perhaps I've been avoiding the issue because it's kind of a tough one to tackle. Generally speaking, we do not make it possible to add our system to a truck that already has a lift kit installed. You would think it would be easy because, theoretically, all I would need to do is get the compressed and extended length of the shocks you're currently running and try match those as closely as possible with some racing shocks and our mounting system. Here are the problems:
I have no idea what spring rate you've got in front.
I have no idea what you've done to your steering geometry with dropped pitman arms, longer control arms, track bars and such.
I have no idea what your rear spring rate is - if you're using add-a-leafs, a replacement leaf pack or lift blocks.
These are important questions because if we just bolt on a longer set of shocks, your ride still might be horrible because the shocks weren't designed or valved to work with your springs. If we start with OE it's great because we just replace certain parts with certain components that have been designed to work together. I know all the numbers and angles of the OE suspension because we've measured it all or had it tested. And I know all the numbers and angles of our suspension because we designed it. I have data to work with. I have no idea what Skyjacker's numbers are.
I can't be sure that big King 2. 5's won't hit the spring bucket somewhere. Your control arms move your axle on an arc, so they move the shock fore and aft. The track bar arrangement moves the shock left to right. So when your suspension moves up and down, the shock is actually moving within the 4" ID spring bucket in a circular motion - that's why the factory mounts it with a stem on top. If you move the lower shock mount 6" farther from the upper shock mount, the size of that circle changes. [for a given amount of articulation it gets smaller, but if your articulation increases, it gets bigger] How can we be sure that the shock won't hit somewhere? If your control arms are not moving in an OE sized (and located) arc and your track bar isn't moving within OE parameters, you may have problems with a big shock in your spring bucket. I haven't tested it, so I don't know if it will work.
Can we sell you some longer shocks - essentially a T. Rex System modified to fit your truck? The answer is yes. Do we like to do that? No. If I sell you a totally custom system for your truck, you'll be calling back, saying your ride is still harsh. Why? Because your springs are probably not soft enough to allow the shock to do what shocks do - which is essentially to transform kinetic energy (movement) into heat - basically the same thing your brakes do. Our philosophy about suspension is this: use a spring that is just stiff enough to support the truck correctly, then control all articulation with hydraulics. Some suspension designers prefer to do things differently but our philosophy seems to work best for this truck. If you tow or carry heavy loads, you've got to keep your rear springs, so we can make your truck much better but we can't make the truck _perfect_ - it's a pickup truck - designed to pick things up and take them places - so it must be a compromise. Anyway, the point is that the springs have to allow articulation at a certain rate - measured in pounds per inch. If I know what rate that is, then I can determine what kind of valving to use. If that rate is too high (as with most lift kits) then there's nothing that will help your ride because the suspension doesn't move - it just hits bumps and deflects the chassis upward, giving you that harsh feel.
If you have a six inch lift, that lift may have been achieved by stiffening springs. Expecting high quality dampeners to bring your ride back into the green arc - so your personal butt-meter (believe it or not, everyone has one!) isn't constantly red-lined, would be kind of like adding $20,000 dollars worth of carbon fiber fender flares, spoilers, wings and ground effects to a Honda Civic and expecting it to be a race car. Ain't gonna happen.
Every day we get about 3- 5 calls from guys asking for "just the rear shocks," or "just the front springs. " I tell these guys that I would love to sell them parts, but it's not going to change the ride enough to fix their problems. Suspension all works together. Springs alone don't help much. Changing out the shocks and retaining the OE springs helps significantly, but it's still not as good as it can be. Adding good shocks to bad springs won't be worth the money. We've done this for guys with show trucks who want the latest, trickest thing and don't care about the ride. But we're really about function and would love to see you content with the way your truck performs.
My question to you is: Why do you want to retain a six inch lift? What good is it doing you? Do you want to keep it just because you spent money to buy it? Like suffering through a bad movie because you paid for the ticket? Are you running tires bigger than 35-37"? If you are, no matter what suspension you use, your truck won't ride as well as it could due to all the unsprung weight or the large, non-compliant bias-ply tires.
I'm sorry, but we don't take trade-in lift kits. We can't resell them or use them for anything, since nobody we deal with wants them.
If you have a show truck or are from Texas or Louisiana, where you better have a big, gnarly truck or you'll never get a date, we understand. [little joke there!] We're certainly willing to work with you on your project, or simply sell you parts and adjust them as required. Unfortunately it will end up costing you even more than if you bought our system with springs included because most everything will have to be custom designed. Our recommendation is to ditch your lift and start over. It will be the most direct route to the ultra high performance our suspension system provides.
Hope this helps!
Best Regards,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Okay, Mr. Monkey-butt, (seems to be what you called yourself,, hehe)
I know it's a tough question, and I appreciate your tiem to answer it.
I know the springs are too stiff, When going over bumps angled at 45*, I can see the bed/cab bein to flex before the axles do,, Curbs nearly bounce me out of the seat,, even at walking speed,, my baby-butt-meter is red-lined! (no monkey-butt here).
1. I want the 6" of lift for looks, I love the way it towers over other vehicles, it's easy to find in the parking lot, and attracts alot of attention. I'd love to take ot off-road, but I know it won't perform.
2. It isn't doing me any good, and I know a few people who feel like working on it to tweak it and have it work better for them, and I think that is what I will do. Trade it for a stock 4wd Suspension. (I bought the truck with the lift) No bad movies here.
3. I'm running 36x14. 5x16. 5 Mickey T's. I don't know the backspace, or offset, but they seem to stick out plenty farther than stock, but look to have the same position on the inside of the tire than stock. (picture the stock tire, then extending the outside of the tire a couple more inches to get 14. 5" of contact patch)
Ditch it? I'd like to. I want a good soft ride. I was thinking of air bagging the truck, with a 4-link in the rear, and bags in place of the coils up front. I want the truck to ride on a goose down feather pillow, and be able to glide through rough roads, while handling jumps. I just want a little more heigth,, maybe instead of the 2. 5" gain, maybe something like a 4. 5" gain. I want the heigth, so I can be seen, and to see, and I know it raises the center of gravity, but the speeds I travel,, I don't think it'll be a problem. No 80MPH jumps for me.
I really want a plush ride,, the kind where, if I stand on the brakes,, the front-end dives way down,, or if I'm WOT, the back in sit's down. I won't be hauling anything more than a ATV, or light car, and if I tow, it's going to be for 20 miles or less, sag isn't an issue.
What can you do for me?
Merrick Cummings Jr
PS, I appreciate your time and effort. But, I have been dying for a meduim lift, with a SOFT ride,, The "tight/Hard" suspensions of the past are NOT The direction I want to go.
Last edited:
Mr. Cummings,
If you built a suspension as soft as you describe, imagine what the handling of the vehicle would be like. If your font end would dive noticeably while braking and your rear end would dip on acceleration, think of the way it would corner! In an emergency situation, you wouldn't be able to control your vehicle - imagine max-effort braking while in a turn! Yikes!
You're going the right direction with your ideas about spring stiffness though! If you want the very best ride possible, you use the very softest spring you can. Meaning, if you had the shocks off the truck it would dive and sway all over as you describe. The only thing the spring should do is hold the truck up to the height you desire. The very best handling springs we've built have been unbelievably soft. Imagine our project truck with a spring so soft in the rear that, without shocks, I could get on the bumper and bottom it on the axle by jumping up and down! That's one soft spring! And that's the spring you need in order to make all road irregularities disappear. Too bad it's a truck and things have to go in the back.
The great thing about our system is that it will give you perfectly flat braking - zero dive, and no backward lean on acceleration. It will allow excellent sway-free cornering and high-speed stability. In addition to all these positive handling characteristics, it will permit moderate jumping without bottoming and absorb high speed hits without transmitting shock into the truck. You would think that suspension like this would have to be very stiff to work the way I describe. Well, it's not. That's how it can roll over parking-lot-speed-bump sized irregularities at high speed and you won't even feel it - you just hear a thump from the tire.
Springs don't really do too much for your ride because they just react to bumps in the same mechanical way each time they are compressed. They're just pieces of tempered steel that flex. All we really require of them is that they move predictably and with the proper amount of force. The key to our system is the hydraulic dampening. The shock is what we call a _smart_ shock. It knows when it needs to be taut and it knows when it needs to be loose. Anyway, there are three essential circuits in the shock, four if you count the piston in the remote reservoir - one for low speed control, one purely for rebound and one purely for compression. When shaft speed is slow, then fluid is bypassed - regulated through the low speed circuit. As shaft speed increases, deflective disks on the compression and rebound side begin to work, allowing more fluid to pass. When shaft speed is very slow, but increases quickly - such as landing from a jump - the disks deflect, allowing fluid to flow through the piston but with increasing resistance, slowing the truck's downward motion; but they only deflect to a preset limit - just enough to prevent bottoming harshly. While all this is happening, as the shock shaft enters the shock body, oil must be displaced - that shaft is a huge 7/8" piece of metal and it takes up a lot of volume. If there weren't a reservoir with another floating piston separating the oil from a charge of nitrogen, the shock would just hydraulically lock as the shaft moved into the body. Instead, the second piston inside the remote reservoir moves back and forth, following shaft travel. As more shaft moves into the body, that piston moves deeper into the reservoir. The 150 psi of nitrogen also provides resistance that grows as its volume decreases, so the more deeply the shaft is inside the shock body, the more resistance the nitrogen provides. All of these circuits, pressures and flow rates have been precisely tuned to work on your truck. It's like getting the best of all possible worlds - a truck that handles like a Porsche on the pavement and a Baja Trophy Truck in the dirt. Most people don't believe that it really works the way I describe - until they get a ride in a T. Rex equipped Ram.
Airbags? I think they're probably excellent for carrying very heavy loads - commercial big rigs use them, so they must work really well for this purpose. I've never seen an airbag on a Porsche or a Trophy Truck. The technology T. Rex Engineering uses is exactly the same technology used on every Baja race car and every single Porsche that rolls off the assembly line in Stuttgart. Oh, and let me add this so I don't get on the bad side of any airbag owners or manufacturer's: The opinion I just expressed about airbags is just that - an opinion. I'm sure there are excellent reasons to use airbags - such as eliminating sag when heavily loaded. And I'm also sure that for some purposes they work better than anything currently available - especially because of the adjustability.
If you want to run your lift with our suspension, here's how we do it.
1. Send us photos of your components. Jack up your truck and remove the front wheels. Take close up photos of the left and right side and head on. Take photos of your rear end as well. [oh, boy, I have to remember that Mr. Cummings is the TDR smart-Alec so I've got to be careful when I write sentences like that! Those words will end up out of context in big black letters for everyone to see! I absolutely dread what you could do with paragraph four! haha]
2. If we can, we'll run our T. Rex front spring with your spacer - I'm cringing as I write that! That may drop your front end an inch or so; then we'll try to match that drop with the rear. If you indeed have a 6" lift, we can't drop your static height more than an inch because we'll limit your travel (articulation).
3. You remove your offensive add-a-leafs or whatever has been done to your pack to make it so stiff. If you have the OE spring, we can tell you exactly which leaves to remove. It will help if your truck is currently sitting a little high in the rear because our goal is to make it level. We can have shorter U-bolts to you in one day if your U-bolts aren't threaded deeply enough to work with a shorter leaf pack. Actually, U-bolts are one-time use and should always be replaced when loosened.
4. Remove all extra shocks until you have one at each corner.
5. Now you've got to use the seat-of-the-pants to check if we've succeeded; that's right, Mr. Cummings, you've got to get the old butt-meter on line. Put 40 psi of cold pressure into your tires to take them out of the equation then drive your truck for a month and keep a precise log of how it handles various road/terrain conditions. Does it dive while braking? Does it sway in turns? How much? How much relative to how it handled before? Is it softer? Put some black wheel-bearing grease on your shock shafts and drive over some bumps. Measure how much wheel travel is being used when you cross railroad tracks. Measure how much wheel travel is being used when you drive a washboard road or hit a pot hole. Put a dab of grease on the bump stop and see if you can bottom it out when you jump it. The grease will end up on the axle when the bump stop touches it. Experiment to find what speeds and what kind of bumps will bottom out your truck. This data will give us a good idea as to whether or not your springs are allowing your axles to articulate enough. Without articulation, you can't absorb bumps, so it won't be worth installing good shocks. If we still have problems with your springs, we go fully custom. I'll work with my spring engineer and we'll design a progressive leaf stack for you. It will cost around $1000. 00 and take six weeks to be produced. If required, I can have coils with a special length and spring rate produced in three weeks at a cost of around $400. 00. It is my feeling, however, that we can solve your spring problems without going this route.
6. If we find that we can make your springs move properly then we send you a T. Rex system designed and valved to the specs that are appropriate to your particular lifted application. First you'll have to photograph your truck with a large tape measure running from level ground up the side of the front and rear fenderwells. We'll need three measurements of your front and rear shocks - with weight on wheels, compressed, and extended - all measurements eye to mid-stem for the front and eye to eye for the rear. We'll custom build your system using King shocks and you'll have it in 2 weeks.
Now, since I have provided a very detailed answer to your question, Mr. Cummings, would you please answer this one?
Q: How do you insert the little faces, so I can add some panache to my text? I especially like the angry little red one with the teeth showing. I would have put three or four of those after writing, "our T. Rex front spring with your spacer... "
Best Regards,
Senior Monkey-Butt
T. Rex Engineering
If you built a suspension as soft as you describe, imagine what the handling of the vehicle would be like. If your font end would dive noticeably while braking and your rear end would dip on acceleration, think of the way it would corner! In an emergency situation, you wouldn't be able to control your vehicle - imagine max-effort braking while in a turn! Yikes!
You're going the right direction with your ideas about spring stiffness though! If you want the very best ride possible, you use the very softest spring you can. Meaning, if you had the shocks off the truck it would dive and sway all over as you describe. The only thing the spring should do is hold the truck up to the height you desire. The very best handling springs we've built have been unbelievably soft. Imagine our project truck with a spring so soft in the rear that, without shocks, I could get on the bumper and bottom it on the axle by jumping up and down! That's one soft spring! And that's the spring you need in order to make all road irregularities disappear. Too bad it's a truck and things have to go in the back.
The great thing about our system is that it will give you perfectly flat braking - zero dive, and no backward lean on acceleration. It will allow excellent sway-free cornering and high-speed stability. In addition to all these positive handling characteristics, it will permit moderate jumping without bottoming and absorb high speed hits without transmitting shock into the truck. You would think that suspension like this would have to be very stiff to work the way I describe. Well, it's not. That's how it can roll over parking-lot-speed-bump sized irregularities at high speed and you won't even feel it - you just hear a thump from the tire.
Springs don't really do too much for your ride because they just react to bumps in the same mechanical way each time they are compressed. They're just pieces of tempered steel that flex. All we really require of them is that they move predictably and with the proper amount of force. The key to our system is the hydraulic dampening. The shock is what we call a _smart_ shock. It knows when it needs to be taut and it knows when it needs to be loose. Anyway, there are three essential circuits in the shock, four if you count the piston in the remote reservoir - one for low speed control, one purely for rebound and one purely for compression. When shaft speed is slow, then fluid is bypassed - regulated through the low speed circuit. As shaft speed increases, deflective disks on the compression and rebound side begin to work, allowing more fluid to pass. When shaft speed is very slow, but increases quickly - such as landing from a jump - the disks deflect, allowing fluid to flow through the piston but with increasing resistance, slowing the truck's downward motion; but they only deflect to a preset limit - just enough to prevent bottoming harshly. While all this is happening, as the shock shaft enters the shock body, oil must be displaced - that shaft is a huge 7/8" piece of metal and it takes up a lot of volume. If there weren't a reservoir with another floating piston separating the oil from a charge of nitrogen, the shock would just hydraulically lock as the shaft moved into the body. Instead, the second piston inside the remote reservoir moves back and forth, following shaft travel. As more shaft moves into the body, that piston moves deeper into the reservoir. The 150 psi of nitrogen also provides resistance that grows as its volume decreases, so the more deeply the shaft is inside the shock body, the more resistance the nitrogen provides. All of these circuits, pressures and flow rates have been precisely tuned to work on your truck. It's like getting the best of all possible worlds - a truck that handles like a Porsche on the pavement and a Baja Trophy Truck in the dirt. Most people don't believe that it really works the way I describe - until they get a ride in a T. Rex equipped Ram.
Airbags? I think they're probably excellent for carrying very heavy loads - commercial big rigs use them, so they must work really well for this purpose. I've never seen an airbag on a Porsche or a Trophy Truck. The technology T. Rex Engineering uses is exactly the same technology used on every Baja race car and every single Porsche that rolls off the assembly line in Stuttgart. Oh, and let me add this so I don't get on the bad side of any airbag owners or manufacturer's: The opinion I just expressed about airbags is just that - an opinion. I'm sure there are excellent reasons to use airbags - such as eliminating sag when heavily loaded. And I'm also sure that for some purposes they work better than anything currently available - especially because of the adjustability.
If you want to run your lift with our suspension, here's how we do it.
1. Send us photos of your components. Jack up your truck and remove the front wheels. Take close up photos of the left and right side and head on. Take photos of your rear end as well. [oh, boy, I have to remember that Mr. Cummings is the TDR smart-Alec so I've got to be careful when I write sentences like that! Those words will end up out of context in big black letters for everyone to see! I absolutely dread what you could do with paragraph four! haha]
2. If we can, we'll run our T. Rex front spring with your spacer - I'm cringing as I write that! That may drop your front end an inch or so; then we'll try to match that drop with the rear. If you indeed have a 6" lift, we can't drop your static height more than an inch because we'll limit your travel (articulation).
3. You remove your offensive add-a-leafs or whatever has been done to your pack to make it so stiff. If you have the OE spring, we can tell you exactly which leaves to remove. It will help if your truck is currently sitting a little high in the rear because our goal is to make it level. We can have shorter U-bolts to you in one day if your U-bolts aren't threaded deeply enough to work with a shorter leaf pack. Actually, U-bolts are one-time use and should always be replaced when loosened.
4. Remove all extra shocks until you have one at each corner.
5. Now you've got to use the seat-of-the-pants to check if we've succeeded; that's right, Mr. Cummings, you've got to get the old butt-meter on line. Put 40 psi of cold pressure into your tires to take them out of the equation then drive your truck for a month and keep a precise log of how it handles various road/terrain conditions. Does it dive while braking? Does it sway in turns? How much? How much relative to how it handled before? Is it softer? Put some black wheel-bearing grease on your shock shafts and drive over some bumps. Measure how much wheel travel is being used when you cross railroad tracks. Measure how much wheel travel is being used when you drive a washboard road or hit a pot hole. Put a dab of grease on the bump stop and see if you can bottom it out when you jump it. The grease will end up on the axle when the bump stop touches it. Experiment to find what speeds and what kind of bumps will bottom out your truck. This data will give us a good idea as to whether or not your springs are allowing your axles to articulate enough. Without articulation, you can't absorb bumps, so it won't be worth installing good shocks. If we still have problems with your springs, we go fully custom. I'll work with my spring engineer and we'll design a progressive leaf stack for you. It will cost around $1000. 00 and take six weeks to be produced. If required, I can have coils with a special length and spring rate produced in three weeks at a cost of around $400. 00. It is my feeling, however, that we can solve your spring problems without going this route.
6. If we find that we can make your springs move properly then we send you a T. Rex system designed and valved to the specs that are appropriate to your particular lifted application. First you'll have to photograph your truck with a large tape measure running from level ground up the side of the front and rear fenderwells. We'll need three measurements of your front and rear shocks - with weight on wheels, compressed, and extended - all measurements eye to mid-stem for the front and eye to eye for the rear. We'll custom build your system using King shocks and you'll have it in 2 weeks.
Now, since I have provided a very detailed answer to your question, Mr. Cummings, would you please answer this one?
Q: How do you insert the little faces, so I can add some panache to my text? I especially like the angry little red one with the teeth showing. I would have put three or four of those after writing, "our T. Rex front spring with your spacer... "
Best Regards,
Senior Monkey-Butt
T. Rex Engineering
Last edited:
Either, Click the smilie faces to the left of the area where you type your message, or you can follow this link for more. . https://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/misc.php?action=getsmilies&s=
Kent,
I appreciate your answer. What seems like a logical thing to do is a road trip to your shop :-laf
I'll have to give you a call Kent. i'll print off these instructions, and when I can squeeze some time outta me, I'll do all those measurements. I want a soft ride, without the load carrying capability.
I like how you are saying,, a soft spring with a good shock (is that simplified enough?) I like the idea of the shock being soft enough to bottom out without a shock. but, a shock being good enough to control that.
I'll have to get the backspacing off the rims I have so I can see about running them on a "lower" truck. They seem to *almost* rub as is.
As soon as I can get my digi. cam to like my PC, I'll get back to you with a boat load of pictures.
Thanks a bunch,
Merrick Cummings Jr
Mr. Cummings,
Thanks for the help! I must be losing it! 
I tried to click on the faces before and didn't think it was working because the face didn't appear in the text. Sheeesh! I'm a nerd!
Please give the office a call any time. We'll be glad to help you as much as we can to get your truck's suspension working properly.
Brad,
Your complete system shipped out Friday. You should have it tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll call to confirm. You are officially the first client to get the Baja tested T. Rex replacement overload leaf packs for the 2003 model. So you should feel
Adios for now,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Thanks for the help!
I must be losing it! I tried to click on the faces before and didn't think it was working because the face didn't appear in the text. Sheeesh! I'm a nerd!
Please give the office a call any time. We'll be glad to help you as much as we can to get your truck's suspension working properly.
Brad,
Your complete system shipped out Friday. You should have it tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll call to confirm. You are officially the first client to get the Baja tested T. Rex replacement overload leaf packs for the 2003 model. So you should feel
Adios for now,
Kent Kroeker
T. Rex Engineering
Woohoo! Tell UPS to hurry up will ya?
Sure would have been nice for that 6. 5 hour trip down from Sacramento last night. The '03 rides MUCH nicer than the older Rams but there's always room for improvements.
I'll get the goods installed just as soon as I get them and let ya know how things went. I'm looking forward to taking that overload out too!
Sure would have been nice for that 6. 5 hour trip down from Sacramento last night. The '03 rides MUCH nicer than the older Rams but there's always room for improvements.
I'll get the goods installed just as soon as I get them and let ya know how things went. I'm looking forward to taking that overload out too!
Lee R
Talked to Kent today- he's setting my shocks to the same settings as yours...
Kent- I've got a 2001 DEPO event phone number: 800 545 4599 or 559 781 3376. FAX 559 784 2039. They didn't advertise in the last TDR Mag. Best I could do, so I hope this helps.
Greg
Talked to Kent today- he's setting my shocks to the same settings as yours...
Kent- I've got a 2001 DEPO event phone number: 800 545 4599 or 559 781 3376. FAX 559 784 2039. They didn't advertise in the last TDR Mag. Best I could do, so I hope this helps.
Greg
Gents,
We're doing something kind of novel with the rear springs. Instead of changing them out entirely, like we used to do, we're just fixing what's wrong with them. It's not a new leaf pack we're offering, it's a replacement mini-pack for the OE overload leaf that's found underneath your existing leaf pack. That big piece of metal is really hard to control with hydraulics because it works in a way that is much too linear. As your axle moves up in response to bumps, the thick overload leaf comes into play and doubles or triples your spring rate in about one inch of articulation! No good if you want a soft, comfortable ride. We replace that thick leaf with several smaller leaves that are always in contact with the entire pack. The results are a softer, more progressive ride and a leaf pack that is stiffer longitudinally in order to reduce or eliminate axle wrap. It's really a great way to go because you don't lose much load capacity - if any at all. As the springs settle with the load, the smaller, stiffer leaves just come into play little by little. It's a nice set up and a perfect compliment to our system. It also costs about a third of what a custom leaf pack costs. Mr. Kilby is getting the second set ever made for the '03. It's an exact copy of pack #7 that we've been working on for some time now.
We're doing something kind of novel with the rear springs. Instead of changing them out entirely, like we used to do, we're just fixing what's wrong with them. It's not a new leaf pack we're offering, it's a replacement mini-pack for the OE overload leaf that's found underneath your existing leaf pack. That big piece of metal is really hard to control with hydraulics because it works in a way that is much too linear. As your axle moves up in response to bumps, the thick overload leaf comes into play and doubles or triples your spring rate in about one inch of articulation! No good if you want a soft, comfortable ride. We replace that thick leaf with several smaller leaves that are always in contact with the entire pack. The results are a softer, more progressive ride and a leaf pack that is stiffer longitudinally in order to reduce or eliminate axle wrap. It's really a great way to go because you don't lose much load capacity - if any at all. As the springs settle with the load, the smaller, stiffer leaves just come into play little by little. It's a nice set up and a perfect compliment to our system. It also costs about a third of what a custom leaf pack costs. Mr. Kilby is getting the second set ever made for the '03. It's an exact copy of pack #7 that we've been working on for some time now.
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Issue 128 – Digital Version
Digital Magazines
FREE!
TDR Test Drive - Digital Edition
Renew
Subscribe
Gift Subscriptions
Back Issues
Subscription Status
Address Change Form
Buyer's Guides
Ram Diagnostic Trouble Codes
The Perfect Collection
The Perfect Collection Vol. II
TSB Updates
Dodge/Cummins Historical Overview
Cameron Collection
What Makes Us Tick?
Product Showcase
Advertising
