3" spacers is pretty common and a fine setup if you are just running 3" spacers. 3" spacers ontop of coils that give you a lift are not. 3" is the max total lift you should go with these suspensions without changing parts. You have 3" lift plus the 1.5" the offroad coils give you so it puts the front end parts at angles they shouldn't be at. I just think it's just asking to dump a ton of moneyinto the front end parts when it wears them out in half the time it would if you had a normal setup or a nice lift.

As for buying a lift vs. piecing it together. Thats up to what you want to do. A Fabtech kit would be nice. The biggest reason I'd piece it together would be to save money as you could probably piece together what you need for not a ton of money. At the same time I am a fan of prebuilt kits usually as they just simplify things. Then again not too much to simplify on these trucks as it's a pretty simple setup. I think if you piece together parts as long as you get quality brands you should be good to go.

Skyjacker in general is a good company. Is it trac bars from them guys don't like or what is it? I can't remember off the top of my head which part guys don't like from them so maybe someone else can fill us in.

 

As for more power after the pleneum thats what I hear. I'm not 100% sure mine was bad when I had it changed. It passed the suction test I was told to do. It just had a little oil in the back of the intake. I had to take the TB off to see this. It was starting to be a bit more than I thought should be normal but I really don't know. I figrued while doing other work I would go ahead and have it all done right so I got the APS kit put in so I wouldn't have this problem again. Well, turns out it was a good thing I did because my lower intake gaskets had and were allowing anitfreeze to leak or something and had rusted completely through 2 of the bolts holding the intake on. This seems like a common issue people find when tearing into the pleneums. The nice thing is the APS kit came with those gaskets. A few people have said with the Hughes you have to buy the lower intake gaskets seperately but I don't know if thats true or not. I'd assume it is.

I'm glad I got mine changed and I have a feeling it was blown. I didn't feel a ton more power or anything after I got it back though. I mean it will spin the tires and all but it's not super fast. It's nothing like our 06 Accord V6 6speed even. It will easily spin the tires in 2nd at 40mph. I had the truck acting up for so long maybe I got a little power and didn't notice it as it definately ran better.

As for gas milage I can't really comment on that either as I haven't drive it a ton since all the work. I put B&G 44k in fuel system cleaner in it. I know several guys that work for shops that swear by it and the shop I used to work at used it. I was told it would make your milage go down hill but you would start feeling power come back. After it got out of your system your milage would come back and the power would stay. IDK if this is true or not about the crappy milage. Anyway the first tank I got 12.5mpg which is about what I'd been getting as long as I ran quality BP gas in there. It would get less with cheapo gas. This last tank I figured it out and got 16mpg but I think I did something wrong. That was with the programmer too though so on premium but still. I went up to our mountain house which you have to drive up a mountain which is hard on it and pulled a trailer with a dirtbike back down probably 30 miles or so. I'm thinking I must have forgotten to write down that I put some in or something as I just can't see getting 16mpg so I'm thinking that tank might not be accurate. I will have to check it the next few times I fill up.

 

Well, I'm not sure why people think my plenum is blown neccessarily? The 360 averages 12mpg city, and 17mpg highway. As I said, my mileage has continued to creep since I've gotten the truck back. When I shutted the truck off tonight, I had 11.7mpg. So I'm still hitting the target zone even with the big nobby tires. And on the highway, I average 18mpg.

Now for the lift. I don't know what I want to do with it. I can't see myself buying a complete liftkit for years, that's just a lot of money...A LOT. I know we've gone over this before, but what else do you think I need to make it right? Also, will new shocks and coil springs stiffen the truck up? I just notice that my truck is very slinky like, and I can't tell if that's normal. Like if I put my hands on the front tire and just kind of start pushing it, the truck will start swaying from side to side pretty effortlessly. Same with the rear. If I just grab the side panel of the bed, I can easily rock the truck from side to side. Is this normal with a lifted truck? It feels stirdy when I'm driving, but I think this has a lot to do with why the truck gets a little uneasy to drive on the highway, especially when the wind is a blowing! I know my front shocks are shot though. They make little popping sounds when I rock the truck back and forth. So I know I need to replace those. I'd also like to replace the coil springs at some point too. Do you think this will at all stiffen the front end up any? I've seen some guys with like dual stablizing kits in the front as well...is that something I need, or that just an extra? Some help on this would be nice. I will focus on the LSD, suspension, and plenum next. Just need to know what I should have in my mind though.

 

battle royale!!

 

You need longer control arm, shocks, drop pitman arm, trac bar or trac bar drop bracket, and maybe sway bar drop brackets. I think thats basically the list.

To test your shocks push down hard on your truck if it keeps bouncing after you let go they need replacing. They will eat your tires up if they go bad and you dont replace them. They are fairly easy to change on these trucks not worth paying a shop to do them imo.

 

How do you fit longer shocks though? Wouldn't I just replace them with the same size shock as what they are now?

 

Maybe. Depends on if the guy before you put the correct length shock on there or not. If they are extended fully or close to it he maybe have just had those really extended. When you buy shocks most will say for like 3" lift or 3-5" lift or 4-5" or whatever. Get ones that fit 4.5" of lift.

Will you be installing the shocks yourself? If so I can post up an how to on here even though it's not that hard.

 

Yeah defiantly will be putting the shocks in myself. Well I guess I'm still a little confused with the shock deal though. The ones in the front appear to be stock, I don't think he even touched them. He just put a 3" coil spacer in there. So shouldn't I just put a 2-3" shock in there? That's what I had put in for the rear when I replaced them last summer.

 

If you make sure they are for the offroad model they should just be for 3" lift but most of the shocks seem to be for the stock ram so you would have 4.5" of lift over that. Therefore if they aren't specifically for a Offroad Model you probably need ones for 4.5" of lift.

For the rear did you put them in yourself? BTW is your rear lifted or did he just put spacers on the front?


To install them is pretty easy. I used air tools this last time which made it super easy but if youdon't have them basically what you need is a rachet and some sockets, open end wrenches (Gear Wrenches work a lot better), and some vise grips.

At the top you should have that rod sticking out of the top of the engine bay. I'd spray this down with some PB Blaster a few days prior to doing them. Maybe do it once a day for a couple days before you do it. When you get ready to do them some shocks like Silver_Dodge's have a nut on them where you can hold them if you pull the boot down but most I've dealt with just have the rod on top. Anyway put your open end wrench on the nut there and clamp the vise grips on tight to the top of the rod. It should have flat sides for you to clamp them down onto. Hold the vise grips to keep the rod from spinning and loosen the nut. A lot of times if they are old and rusty as yours appear to be this can be a pain because the rod will want to spin in the visegrips and mine even after only a year and a half were hard to get off due to rust. I loosend them with a air impact gun first but you can do it by hand. A propane torch also usually helps if the PB blaster doesn't loosen the rust enough for it to come off.

Ok once you get that off go to the bottom of the truck from the front. You will see a large bolt that goes through the bottom of the shock. I can't remember what size this one was. Use a extension on a socket so you can hook it onto a rachet and take that bolt out. On the rear it's a nut welded to a bracket thing that hits metal so it can only turn so far. You don't have to hold the nut. The bracket will keep it from turning but maybe look first so you know how it goes back.

Once you take that out go back to the top. There are 3 nuts holding the shock tower on. You have to take one out from the inside of the engine bay and the other two from the wheel well. After you get these out you should see the shock rising up since there won't be pressure on them. You may have to push them down some to work the shock tower out of the way. Once you get that off just work the shock out of the top. One of mine was stuck in there so I just stuck a prybar through the coil spring and pried it up but if you don't have a prybar you can probably just keep pulling on it and work it out with your hand.

One the drivers side watch out as when you take the shock tower bolts loose it wants to push it all up into the master cylinder. Make sure the rod doesn't land on one of the lines and push on it and damage it. Just be careful and watch it and make sure it doesn't hit the lines. You can easily move it around with your hand so you can stop it from hitting the master cylinder or brakes lines as long as you are paying attention. To put the new shocks on reverse these steps. When putting the shock tower back on I put it over the shock then used it so I could push down on that instead of the rod to compress the shock to put it back. Compress it enough that you can get one of the nuts holding the shock tower back on and put the nut on so it doesn't come back up. Then go and put the 2 on inside the wheel well.

It's really a simple job. The only problem is when stuff is rusted soo badly which you may run into but usually you can still do it fairly easy. Not worth paying someone to do. I had a shop do mine one time as I didn't have time nor did I want to mess with it so I paid them $60 to do the front two and I did the rear 2. It wasn't worth the $60 for them to do it. Just spray everything down with pb blaster in advance. It's also a good idea to go get some anti seize and put on everything when putting it back together.


I'm not sure if you will do the rears or not since you said you already had a set put on there.

For the rear lower the spare tire down and take it off. The just makes it a lot easier as you should now be able to sit under the truck. Atleast I could. Take the lower bolt out holding them in. On the top it's one of those things thats a little hard to get to but not bad. On the passenger side I think I used a deep well socket and a small extension on my 1/2" rachet. Well that was putting them on. Taking them off I used a impact gun. They have a nut welded to a bracket like the lowers on the front. You will see what I'm talking about when you go to do them so you wont have to hold the nut it won't spin. Just remove those then pull the shocks out and reverse to put the new ones in. It's all in all a simple job.


If you have any questions just ask and I or others I'm sure will try to help you.


BTW when you have the shocks off the car is a nice time to give them some custom paint.

Here is my thread about that
https://dodgeforum.com/m_1244867/tm.htm


Good luck and just ask if you have any questions.

 

Ohhh I got what you mean with the shocks. So are you saying if I get a 4.5"-5" shock, I can completely get rid of those coil spacers? I thought I had to just replace the stock shock and keep those spacers. Does this mean I'd have to get 5" coil springs too?? Also, if I get shocks in the front and eliminate the spacers, will this stiffen my front end up??

Thank you for your in detail description on how to do the shocks. It sounds like a cute spring job when it gets a little warmer. I appreciate how you always give me very in depth analysis and help always, it's very nice of you!