Desert Dawg Ram Rebel Build

[Desert Dawg]

One of things I have been wanting to share is some artwork that I have in my garage/shop. My brother is a professional graphic artist and has done a number of works for rock bands, music festivals, horror houses, and so forth. Anyway, he created these for me over the years.

Of course, my avatar:

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My recent lighted Desert Dawg sign I use in my shop over the beer fridge (have to squint to see in 2nd photo...lol):

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Another couple of shop signs I have hanging up:

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I have this hanging up in the shop too:

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He has quite a few others of which some I don't even have framed yet. But if interested, you can check out some of his other work if you Google images for "Phil Fensterer". Just thought it would be fun to share.

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[Desert Dawg]

I've been on that road in Colorado... just outside of Durango. Love that road.

@Desert Dawg your truck turned out great!

Thanks Scott! I am pretty happy with it so far.

I really enjoy bopping around the Durando-Pagosa Springs-Silverton-Telluride area of southern CO as there are so many great mountain passes to wheel over along with great breweries and places to stay. I am taking my wife to Pagosa in another two weeks as we enjoy just hanging out at a rental cabin right on the San Juan River and going into town for some great food and drinks. I am hoping to get a little wheeling in too!

 

[Bobbybob]

Wouldn't that be awesome if we ever figure out a group off-road excursion of Rams! Also, plenty of desert trails down in El Paso and Las Cruces that I haven't tried out yet too!

Thanks for reading the build thread and the compliment!

I’m in NoCO...let’s figure something out. Just waiting on wheels and tires to get here myself!

 

[justclements]

Love your build so far. I just moved in to a 1500 Laramie w/ Sport Package from a my Tacoma OR and looking to do some basic suspension/wheels/tires. My Tacoma had a full OME lift, leaf pack, and roof top tent on the bed. With twin girls now this 1500 will be more of a daily driver, but want to be able to move about on the trails still.

I know a full suspension lift is always better, but any opposition for a 2.5" MotoFab front level, 18" wheels, and a 35" tire? Love your MT's, but I have 5 months of snow in Michigan and unsure I want to move away from an AT. Don't want to hijack your thread here, so feel free to message me if you have any feedback!

 

[antwon412]

Love your build so far. I just moved in to a 1500 Laramie w/ Sport Package from a my Tacoma OR and looking to do some basic suspension/wheels/tires. My Tacoma had a full OME lift, leaf pack, and roof top tent on the bed. With twin girls now this 1500 will be more of a daily driver, but want to be able to move about on the trails still.

I know a full suspension lift is always better, but any opposition for a 2.5" MotoFab front level, 18" wheels, and a 35" tire? Love your MT's, but I have 5 months of snow in Michigan and unsure I want to move away from an AT. Don't want to hijack your thread here, so feel free to message me if you have any feedback!

17s won’t clear the rotors. And even some 18s won’t. Search around the site a bit. There are a couple threads on the Wheels and Tires sup forums that will help a lot.

 

[justclements]

Thanks! I mistyped and put 17 instead of 18s.

 

[Errrnst]

Hey Desert Dawg I really appreciate your detail and thoroughness of this thread. It has been very educational to watch your progression and thought process throughout the build. That being said, Carli recently announced their suspension package for the 2019+ Ram Rebel. I am curious about your thoughts on the system and how it compares to what you have currently in light of the fact you have run the king shocks in the past? I completely understand that reaching the ideal aesthetics for your build along with maintaining performance have been a real focus for you. In terms of straight performance (I understand you haven't tested the Carli offering) do you have any opinion on a comparison between the Carli and Fabtech/Dirt Logic systems?

Carli Performance 2.5 2019+ Ram System

 

[Desert Dawg]

I’m in NoCO...let’s figure something out. Just waiting on wheels and tires to get here myself!

Well, haven't got my act together liked I hoped for end of summer but we definitely would have quite a group when we finally do!

 

[Desert Dawg]

Love your build so far. I just moved in to a 1500 Laramie w/ Sport Package from a my Tacoma OR and looking to do some basic suspension/wheels/tires. My Tacoma had a full OME lift, leaf pack, and roof top tent on the bed. With twin girls now this 1500 will be more of a daily driver, but want to be able to move about on the trails still.

I know a full suspension lift is always better, but any opposition for a 2.5" MotoFab front level, 18" wheels, and a 35" tire? Love your MT's, but I have 5 months of snow in Michigan and unsure I want to move away from an AT. Don't want to hijack your thread here, so feel free to message me if you have any feedback!

Thanks for the compliment.

I have no opposition with the MotoFab leveling kit but using a 2.5" spacer is the most you'll want to do without creating headaches down the road. But you'll really limit your wheel articulation over the rough stuff so not ideal for offroading at all. But for minor (dirt road) wheeling without flex, you should have no problems. I agree that going with a true MT would not be ideal, but the newer semi-hybrids like the Geolanders I am running have more sipping than most MTs and actually do quite well in wet and snow conditions. Not all ATs perform the same in wet/snow conditions either so I still think a great pick would a true hybrid like the Nitto Ridge Grapplers which I found were even better than the typical MT and AT.

 

[Desert Dawg]

Hey Desert Dawg I really appreciate your detail and thoroughness of this thread. It has been very educational to watch your progression and thought process throughout the build. That being said, Carli recently announced their suspension package for the 2019+ Ram Rebel. I am curious about your thoughts on the system and how it compares to what you have currently in light of the fact you have run the king shocks in the past? I completely understand that reaching the ideal aesthetics for your build along with maintaining performance have been a real focus for you. In terms of straight performance (I understand you haven't tested the Carli offering) do you have any opinion on a comparison between the Carli and Fabtech/Dirt Logic systems?

Carli Performance 2.5 2019+ Ram System

Thank you for following along!

Yeah, Carli produces some quality products for sure. I don't think they offered anything for the new gen Rams at the time I was searching. But the newer Performance system looks pretty good. I really liked the King 2.5 Performance series shocks so having Carli retune the same shocks for even more performance should be impressive. They also improved the rear spring setup to provide a slight lift to match the front but with more travel than the factory setup (or my setup using the factory springs with a rear spacer).

Compared to the Dirt Logic system I am using, the new Carli system is a much more robust system (the Carli UCAs would also be superior to the Fabtech base UCAs I am running although I have plans to upgrade those anyway). You won't get the 3-inch of lift and stance that I wanted, but you'll have more articulation and control front and rear when hitting the rough stuff. However, I suspect the Carli system will price at least $1000 (if not more) over the Dirt Logic system I am using. If I wanted to spend that much more on my suspension, I would have looked at upgraded systems from Dirt Logic, King, Carli, etc. offerings as well.

 

[Ram89]

@Leif_Ram2019;

1) I'm a little surprised this lift gets you a true 3" of lift. I was under the impression the Rebel and ORP trucks got their factory extra inch of height from a 1" longer spring. Did you, or the shop, do much adjustment with the coilover? It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like there is a large threaded adjustment section. Was the shop aiming to get you a certain height, or just to make you level?

I netted right around 2.5-inches of lift over the factory Rebel ride height so if you round up, you have a 3-inch lift (marketing magic). The increase in tire size brought the truck up to a full +3-inches over a factory Rebel setup.

There is some thread remaining for additional tweaking of the ride height. I asked my shop to try and retain about 1/2-inch rake with the topper installed to help compensate for any additional loads in the bed. I am confident I could dial in another 1/4"-1/2" of lift increase but that would make the truck almost exactly level and maybe cause slight degradation of ride quality (I feel I am already at the cusp of having decent ride quality vs. being noticeably stiff). However, after settling some, I noticed that my passenger side is tad lower than the driver side, so I will probably use some of the remaining thread to make the side to side adjustment.

2) I'm curious why you chose the lift with the 2.5 Coilovers vs. the ones with the remote reservoir. Sure, the latter is more expensive. But not much more expensive considering the overall cost of these bad boys.

Good question; I went back and forth on this actually as I have opted for the remote reservoir (Fox/King) systems in the past. While I am sure that I probably off-road more than most Rebel owners, the fact is I rarely abuse my rigs on sustained higher speed desert runs (maybe short runs) and/or extreme rock crawling that would throttle the shocks a lot. In those cases, I would really benefit having the remote reservoirs. So this time, I decided that the better value would be having a higher quality base system and not pay for the entire show. I might regret that decision later if I find myself really wanting to do something more technical or at higher-speeds, but with my decision to go more of the slower speed "Overland" style build (i.e., bed topper), I think this setup should be fine (subject to change later...lol).

3) I saw a disclaimer associated with this lift that said, 'can not use OEM wheel and tire'. Do you know why that is?

Lift manufacturers always want to make sure that any installed wheels won't rub or bind with their installed products. The base Fabtech UCAs are not adjustable and increase the caster, so to ensure clearance within the wheel well, and assuming you want a 35-inch tall tire (with corresponding tire widths up to 13-inches) the wheels cannot exceed a backspacing greater than 5-inches of back spacing. My wheels have 4.75-inches of BS so they fit within that spec.

edits: grammatical correction​

Hey Desert Dawg, awesome truck.

I am wondering about you getting 2.5" over stock Rebel height, when the Rebel comes stock with the 1" lift. Wouldn't this net around 3.5" on non Rebel/ORP trims?

 

[Desert Dawg]

Hey Desert Dawg, awesome truck.

I am wondering about you getting 2.5" over stock Rebel height, when the Rebel comes stock with the 1" lift. Wouldn't this net around 3.5" on non Rebel/ORP trims?

Thanks!

As advertised, the Fabtech Dirt Logic system will provide 3-inches of lift on a stock non-Rebel 2WD/4WD truck. Accounting for the additional 1-inch ride height of the Rebel factory suspension means the system should really only lift the Rebel another ~2-inches over its stock ride height. However, there is always some variability due to how many turns you actually dialed in combined with slight variances in the finished build specs within factory tolerances (i.e., actual fender fitments, etc.). So some trucks may net slightly more or less than the advertised lift specs.

I had measured my stock Rebel (with the factory 33s) from the floor to bottom of the front fender flare (better measurement would have been from wheel hub center to bottom of the front fender flare) at 38-3/8 inches. My final measurement with the Fabtech Dirt Logic suspension (and Geolander tires) is at 41-1/2 inches (which is about 1/4" less after everything settled some). That brings me to 3-1/8 inches of total lift (suspension + tires). Deducting for the change in tire height (half of 1.2 inches = .6 inches) nets about 2.5 inches of actual lift over the factory Rebel. So this is about 1/2-inch higher than what you'd expect but I have the Dirt Logics almost maxed out (maybe another 1/2-inch at most of adjustability left remaining on the threads).

Now I do have a lean between the Driver and Passenger sides; the Driver side is about 3/8-inch higher than the Passenger so it is feasible that the Driver side fender just sits higher due the above mentioned factory build variances. If so, that would bring the actual lift down to 2-1/8 inches which is closer to the expected results. But since I have enough room to adjust the Passenger side upwards to match the Driver side, I will still be at 2.5-inches of lift without the extra height of the tires accounted for. I am taking the truck back to the shop on Wednesday to adjust the Passenger side so I will be able to provide an update again afterwards.

 

[Ram89]

Thanks!

As advertised, the Fabtech Dirt Logic system will provide 3-inches of lift on a stock non-Rebel 2WD/4WD truck. Accounting for the additional 1-inch ride height of the Rebel factory suspension means the system should really only lifts the Rebel another ~2-inches over its stock ride height. However, there is always some variability due to how many turns you actually dialed in combined with slight variances in the finished build specs within factory tolerances (i.e., actual fender fitments, etc.). So some trucks may net slightly more or less than the advertised lift specs.

I had measured my stock Rebel (with the factory 33s) from the floor to bottom of the front fender flare (better measurement would have been from wheel hub center to bottom of the front fender flare) at 38-3/8 inches. My final measurement with the Fabtech Dirt Logic suspension (and Geolander tires) is at 41-1/2 inches (which is about 1/4" less after everything settled some). That brings me to 3-1/8 inches of total lift (suspension + tires). Deducting for the change in tire height (half of 1.2 inches = .6 inches) nets about 2.5 inches of actual lift over the factory Rebel. So this is about 1/2-inch higher than what you'd expect but I have the Dirt Logics almost maxed out (maybe another 1/2-inch at most of adjustability left remaining on the threads).

Now I do have a lean between the Driver and Passenger sides; the Driver side is about 3/8-inch higher than the Passenger so it is feasible that the Driver side fender just sits higher due the above mentioned factory build variances. If so, that would bring the actual lift down to 2-1/8 inches which is closer to the expected results. But since I have enough room to adjust the Passenger side upwards to match the Driver side, I will still be at 2.5-inches of lift without the extra height of the tires accounted for. I am taking the truck back to the shop on Wednesday to adjust the Passenger side so I will be able to provide an update again afterwards.

Thank you for the detailed response! I can tell you put a lot of time and thought into your projects.

I have been going back and forth between the different coilover options to lift/level and I like the idea of getting a little more height out of the Fabtech option.

I had the Fox coilovers, rear shocks, and icon coils on my 2012 and I liked the ride quality. My new truck has the ORP and would only get an additional ~1.5" from the 2.5" options.

The only thing that I'm worried about is the CV axle angle with this setup. Are you still not having any issues with yours? Im guessing Fabtech accounted for that in the design process, but I just want to be sure before ordering.

 

[Duran]

Thanks for the compliment.

I have no opposition with the MotoFab leveling kit but using a 2.5" spacer is the most you'll want to do without creating headaches down the road. But you'll really limit your wheel articulation over the rough stuff so not ideal for offroading at all. But for minor (dirt road) wheeling without flex, you should have no problems. I agree that going with a true MT would not be ideal, but the newer semi-hybrids like the Geolanders I am running have more sipping than most MTs and actually do quite well in wet and snow conditions. Not all ATs perform the same in wet/snow conditions either so I still think a great pick would a true hybrid like the Nitto Ridge Grapplers which I found were even better than the typical MT and AT.

Any adivice on my install of the motofab 2.5 on my 2020 ram 1500 laramie 4x4 ?

 

[Desert Dawg]

Any adivice on my install of the motofab 2.5 on my 2020 ram 1500 laramie 4x4 ?

I have not installed the MotoFab leveling system but @Trevorjohn had an informative thread with some recommendations as well as additional input from others: https://5thgenrams.com/community/threads/motofab-2-5”-leveling-kit-installed.2900/

My only recommendation is to make sure you still get an alignment after the install!

 

[Desert Dawg]

Thank you for the detailed response! I can tell you put a lot of time and thought into your projects.

I have been going back and forth between the different coilover options to lift/level and I like the idea of getting a little more height out of the Fabtech option.

I had the Fox coilovers, rear shocks, and icon coils on my 2012 and I liked the ride quality. My new truck has the ORP and would only get an additional ~1.5" from the 2.5" options.

The only thing that I'm worried about is the CV axle angle with this setup. Are you still not having any issues with yours? Im guessing Fabtech accounted for that in the design process, but I just want to be sure before ordering.

Thanks again. I totally understand as I went through a similar assessment; I thought my previous ICON, King, and Fox systems were excellent for both improved on-road handling and off-road performance. But as I mentioned previously, I really wanted to get a certain stance on the Ram without resorting to a drop-bracket system and most of the coil-over options will only net about 1.5-inches for the Rebel/ORP as you stated.

The Fabtech Dirt Logic 3-inch system is a nice compromise; you get a quality coil-over that rides great and has very good off-road performance. The UCAs are not the best you can get compared with other systems but still an upgrade over factory. I still am going to install adjustable UCAs to further corrrect the front geometry. Per the picture below, I think I am pushing the CV angles (not too bad but still placing more stress on them over the factory alignment). My only concern is with the stabilizer bar linkage so having my shop take a look when I get the side-to-side adjustment completed this week.

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[Ram89]

Thanks again. I totally understand as I went through a similar assessment; I thought my previous ICON, King, and Fox systems were excellent for both improved on-road handling and off-road performance. But as I mentioned previously, I really wanted to get a certain stance on the Ram without resorting to a drop-bracket system and most of the coil-over options will only net about 1.5-inches for the Rebel/ORP as you stated.

The Fabtech Dirt Logic 3-inch system is a nice compromise; you get a quality coil-over that rides great and has very good off-road performance. The UCAs are not the best you can get compared with other systems but still an upgrade over factory. I still am going to install adjustable UCAs to further corrrect the front geometry. Per the picture below, I think I am pushing the CV angles (not too bad but still placing more stress on them over the factory alignment). My only concern is with the stabilizer bar linkage so having my shop take a look when I get the side-to-side adjustment completed this week.

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Thank you. I didn't notice the stabilizer bar linkage when you posted the picture earlier on. Would new end links help with that?

 

[Desert Dawg]

Thank you. I didn't notice the stabilizer bar linkage when you posted the picture earlier on. Would new end links help with that?

Yeah, I need to jack up the truck up and see if it's binding when the front fully droops. If so, not sure yet on options as I could not find any aftermarket links offered for the 2020 Ram. If there the link isn't binding up, I will just run with it and keep checking.

 

[Desert Dawg]

Thank you. I didn't notice the stabilizer bar linkage when you posted the picture earlier on. Would new end links help with that?

Yeah, I need to jack up the truck up and see if it's binding when the front fully droops. If so, not sure yet on options as I could not find any aftermarket links offered for the 2020 Ram. If there the link isn't binding up, I will just run with it and keep checking.

Just a follow up; I had Desert Rat Off-Road Center look at the sway bar links and they stated that the links looked fine despite the boot looking stressed. Unfortunately, I did not think of taking a photo of the links when I had the Falcon suspension installed for comparison. I usually have Desert Rat inspect the suspension, wheels, etc. at least twice a year so will continue checking the links as well.

 

[Desert Dawg]

Almost forget; Desert Rat was not able to "adjust" the passenger side up to correct the side to side lean. On my previous vehicle build (2015 Tundra with the King suspension system dialed in at about 2.75-inches of front lift), there was no issue dialing a tad more on the passenger side. But on the 2020 Ram, even though there was plenty of thread remaining on the Dirt Logic coil-overs, the driver side would also raise up as they turned up the passenger side. So it turned out to be a useless exercise. If needed, I could have raised the front (Driver + Passenger) another 1/2-inch but I feel I am pushing the envelope in terms of ride quality and component wear as it is, so we ended up leaving everything as is.