HRT Offroad
Suspension Guy
Hey Guys and Gals!! I've been lurking these parts for 5 years now, and decided I should finally post 
We recently did a Baja trip with our Full size Ram w/ CTD. We are no strangers to diesels and Baja, as we have raced the 1000 twice in a Cummins powered Ram. This trip to Baja was a little more relaxing (in some ways). Being that we were going on a holiday (with some R&D mixed in) I wanted to re-build our rig so that it could still boogie in the desert, but have a bit of an expo rig flare to it. It worked nothing short of amazing and we are super pumped to see spring, so that we can get out and use it up here in Canada.
The Suspension:
being that we are no strangers to the Dodge platform - our suspension brand was a no brainer. We chose a Carli Suspension 3" height Un-chained System. We have Distributed Carli Suspension for 6 years now, so we know both the crew at Carli and their products very well. One would think that choosing and tuning a suspension for a full size expo rig would be easy....and you are correct...it is!! BUT, throw "high speed" into the mix and it opens up a whole new universe. The Un-Chained system utilizes 3.5" King Smoothies up front and 3" 3 tube bypass in the rear. Being that we would be adding nearly a 1000lbs into the bed and still wanting to mash 2' whoops at 40+ mph we opted to upgrade to a 3.5" 3 tube bypass in the rear - in order to help better control the weight and the custom Deaver springs that we had. It all worked...and worked amazing. It's not often one get's to see an expo style fullsize raging through the Baja desert. We turned a few heads to say the least
Tires and Wheels:
We had done much testing with Toyo in our two prior B1K's...so tires were easy - 37x13.5R17 Toyo M/T's We wrapped the Toyo's around a set of Trailready HD beadlocks - 17x8.5 w/6" BS. We had to use a near stock backspace in order squeeze the 37's under the truck with only 3" of height increase.
Gear, Spares and RTT:
The dodge short bed is only 6'2" long, so fitting (2) 37" spares, tools, recovery gear, gear, food and a CVT Roof Top Tent in the back was going to be a challenge....not to mention it had to all stay secure during long periods of repeated punishment. Solution....custom bed cage. We fabbed up a bed cage that would hold the 2 spares vertical and right behind the cab. Tools and recovery gear would be anchored on either side of the spares. The RTT would sit just above the bed rails and fold out off the back of the truck and gear and food would have a secure storage rack underneath the RTT. Slick as heck how it all worked...we didn't even break an egg...or lose the tent for that matter
I'll post some pics and more info on the build in the days to come. I hope everyone enjoys what we did to make this rig work for it's intended use!!
More to come!!
We recently did a Baja trip with our Full size Ram w/ CTD. We are no strangers to diesels and Baja, as we have raced the 1000 twice in a Cummins powered Ram. This trip to Baja was a little more relaxing (in some ways). Being that we were going on a holiday (with some R&D mixed in) I wanted to re-build our rig so that it could still boogie in the desert, but have a bit of an expo rig flare to it. It worked nothing short of amazing and we are super pumped to see spring, so that we can get out and use it up here in Canada.
The Suspension:
being that we are no strangers to the Dodge platform - our suspension brand was a no brainer. We chose a Carli Suspension 3" height Un-chained System. We have Distributed Carli Suspension for 6 years now, so we know both the crew at Carli and their products very well. One would think that choosing and tuning a suspension for a full size expo rig would be easy....and you are correct...it is!! BUT, throw "high speed" into the mix and it opens up a whole new universe. The Un-Chained system utilizes 3.5" King Smoothies up front and 3" 3 tube bypass in the rear. Being that we would be adding nearly a 1000lbs into the bed and still wanting to mash 2' whoops at 40+ mph we opted to upgrade to a 3.5" 3 tube bypass in the rear - in order to help better control the weight and the custom Deaver springs that we had. It all worked...and worked amazing. It's not often one get's to see an expo style fullsize raging through the Baja desert. We turned a few heads to say the least
Tires and Wheels:
We had done much testing with Toyo in our two prior B1K's...so tires were easy - 37x13.5R17 Toyo M/T's We wrapped the Toyo's around a set of Trailready HD beadlocks - 17x8.5 w/6" BS. We had to use a near stock backspace in order squeeze the 37's under the truck with only 3" of height increase.
Gear, Spares and RTT:
The dodge short bed is only 6'2" long, so fitting (2) 37" spares, tools, recovery gear, gear, food and a CVT Roof Top Tent in the back was going to be a challenge....not to mention it had to all stay secure during long periods of repeated punishment. Solution....custom bed cage. We fabbed up a bed cage that would hold the 2 spares vertical and right behind the cab. Tools and recovery gear would be anchored on either side of the spares. The RTT would sit just above the bed rails and fold out off the back of the truck and gear and food would have a secure storage rack underneath the RTT. Slick as heck how it all worked...we didn't even break an egg...or lose the tent for that matter
I'll post some pics and more info on the build in the days to come. I hope everyone enjoys what we did to make this rig work for it's intended use!!
More to come!!
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