What did you do to your Ram today???

[jimothy]

I added a small Govee thermometer into the engine bay battery box, to track temperatures as I worry about my new LiFePO4 starting battery. It's stuck the the box with 3M Dual Lock, which is like an industrial strength velcro. It's powered by a single AAA battery; the velcro makes it easy to remove it when it's time to replace the battery. The thermometer itself has a maximum 140° F temperature; we'll see how it deals with engine bay temps, but it's cheap enough to be expendable.

It's nice because it keeps a history of temperatures, and you can also have it alert you if temperature or humidity get above or below thresholds you set.
I may slip one between the heat barrier and the battery, to get an idea of how effective it is.

 

[Dogpatch]

Cue @Dogpatch In 5, 4, 3, 2.........

Ahhh. You know me too well!
It only took me 6 hours after you posted that for me to unknowingly respond about the Michelin’s. LOL
I should get a kickback from Michelin, however, I get it in the ride factor.

 

[boogielander]

OMG. if i was your passenger i would be silently losing my mind and as soon as you ran in to get something at the gas station i would peel every single film in there off and put them in window squeegee water bin near the pump so you could not get them back.

i ride solo 100% of the time lol
only time my passenger seat got sat on was the week i got the truck and i was giving test drives and test rides to my friends

 

[Insanity]

i ride solo 100% of the time lol
only time my passenger seat got sat on was the week i got the truck and i was giving test drives and test rides to my friends

My ram halls *** every where it goes. It's my *** it hauls...

 

[boogielander]

I replaced my stock battery with a dual purpose (starter and deep cycle) lithium (LiFePO4) battery. Dakota Lithium 135Ah, 1000 CCA. I need to do some more testing with it and tweak some IBS parameters with JScan, but so far, so good.

I went with Dakota Lithium over Antigravity for three main reasons: Capacity (135Ah vs 60 or 80), it's self heating for charging in the cold, and price—though it still wasn't cheap! But the Antigravity would have a much easier install, since it's available in the same H7 size of the stock battery. The DL is a Group 24F size battery (same depth, but narrower and taller than than H7).

I may do a more detailed write up later of the install process, but the short version is, I had to cut and splice two 2 AWG wires and one 4 AWG wire and crimp new battery lugs. Fortunately, I have a hydraulic crimper already, so this wasn't too bad. Just a major leap of faith when you make that first cut.

I am a bit concerned about how heat under the hood will impact the battery. I'm also concerned if my eTorque DC-DC charger could ever provide too much current to the battery; it's best to charge it lower than 40A, and 135A is the maximum sustained charge. I'll keep an eye on charging current and temperature.

The battery has Bluetooth (oddly, they don't advertise this), and you can use their app to track current, voltage, state of charge, and other parameters. Oddly, it doesn't display temperature, though since it has a self-heating feature, it must include a thermometer. But, you can monitor battery temperature from the IBS via JScan.

During my first test drive, before I tweaked any IBS parameters in JScan, it mustly didn't charge. Rather, during this evening trip (thus, headlights and taillights on), it was must draining at around 20A. It did see it charging as high as 80A for a brief moment; still safe, but higher than I like.

Since then, I tweaked the IBS settings, especially setting the battery voltage at which it'll be recharged; it defaults to 10V, which is a very dead LFP battery. I changed it to 13.4V, just below the fully charged, resting (i.e., not currently charging) voltage of an LFP. What this means is, the charger will kick in earlier and more often, but, I believe, at a lower current. (Ohm's Law also plays in here: LFP batteries internal resistance rises with voltage, so current will drop as voltage rises).

I haven't yet taken another test drive after these tweaks, but I'll be keeping an eye on things this week.

(The finally install is the one with the black felt on top and the wires wrapped in loom).


View attachment 181094

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View attachment 181096 View attachment 181095

that's the path I wanted to go but the tweaking and stuff got me put that plan on hold. Especially with the big trip to the north coming up I don't wanna venture too far into mods that I know should work in theory but unsure of in reality.

Why do you need to cut and splice?

 

[jimothy]

that's the path I wanted to go but the tweaking and stuff got me put that plan on hold. Especially with the big trip to the north coming up I don't wanna venture too far into mods that I know should work in theory but unsure of in reality.

Why do you need to cut and splice?

Stock wires wouldn’t reach the terminals. Mostly due to the DL being taller, but also being narrow. The cables had further to reach.

If there’s an alternative to cutting and splicing…now you tell me!

 

[boogielander]

Stock wires wouldn’t reach the terminals. Mostly due to the DL being taller, but also being narrow. The cables had further to reach.

If there’s an alternative to cutting and splicing…now you tell me!

there's non lol
unless you somehow trace it alllllll the way back to the other side and replace it all lolll

keep me posted on this!
im really considering swapping out the OE battery before I take off for 2 months in August. With all these stuff i'm reading regarding OE battery I find myself not really trusting it even though I've yet to have any issues with it.

 

[silverWS6]

Well... found the source of the squeaking

 

[Door-Daddy.com]

My new wheels arrived Woot woot..
20x10 - 18 offset Fuel Warrior

Waiting on some other goodies to arrive in the next few days...

If you're looking to spend some dinero it would make my heart sing if you checked out my product, a custom foam insert for the Ram 1500's driver doorwell

 

[Door-Daddy.com]

My new wheels arrived Woot woot..
20x10 - 18 offset Fuel Warrior

Waiting on some other goodies to arrive in the next few days...

Damn those things are sexy af nice buy!

 

[kapinallinen2]

Well... found the source of the squeaking

View attachment 181157

Boot let go, how many miles?

 

[silverWS6]

Boot let go, how many miles?

55k

I do off-road my truck but nothing extreme. Mainly just light sand, kinda disappointed that it let go.

 

[blckout]

New tails to replace the halogen and added a matte black vinyl strip to the tailgate

 

[kapinallinen2]

55k

I do off-road my truck but nothing extreme. Mainly just light sand, kinda disappointed that it let go.

That stinks.

 

[M3forged]

Put decals on today and Permatex'd the 3rd brake light/ window seam.

 

[HSKR R/T]

there's non lol
unless you somehow trace it alllllll the way back to the other side and replace it all lolll

keep me posted on this!
im really considering swapping out the OE battery before I take off for 2 months in August. With all these stuff i'm reading regarding OE battery I find myself not really trusting it even though I've yet to have any issues with it.

Just get a H8 AGM and be done. No need for something fancy for a starting battery. You already have a separate battery for your accessories.

 

[jimothy]

Just get a H8 AGM and be done. No need for something fancy for a starting battery. You already have a separate battery for your accessories.

Even though I just installed a fancy starting battery, I recognize the truth of what you suggest. It may be the better approach.

So why did I go the lithium route? If it works out, there’s something elegant about the idea of one battery to rule them all. One battery to start the truck, power my lights, fridge, heated mattress pad, and other camping gear.

Recharge that one battery with the solar panels and charge controlled I’ve already got. No need to install a DC-DC charger to keep a secondary battery charged when sun isn’t plentiful. No need to make space for that second battery.

If everything works out, I love that I save space, weight, and time since I don’t have to hookup my battery pack. Trivial, I know, but there is a certain elegance to everything being part of the truck, always ready to go.


So, while I wouldn’t recommend my approach to everyone, it would be an elegant solution for my needs, and the wiring required is within my abilities (and, I’ll admit, I enjoy that part of building my “rig”).

But I’ve still got questions about the long term health of a lithium battery in the engine bay. Even “long term” reviews are limited to a year or two at this point. This might end up being an expensive experiment, where I took one for the team (you’re welcome!), and maybe an AGM, DC-DC charger, and secondary lithium battery (which I already owned), would have been smarter.

 

[22Ram1500InAR]

Installed the airlift 1000 HD bags. I took my time and routed the airlines through the frame and put the nipple right next to my license plate. Driving into work today. The truck feels mostly the same, probably exactly the same… I’m just just being hyper sensitive to every little bump, wondering if the airbags stiffen into the ride at all. Looking forward to running them at 15 to maybe 20 psi with the camper.

Next up on my very short list of things to do is ordering and installing the utility rails in the bed.

Those utility rails can be a pain to install. This thread helped me and I tried to contribute as well. Make sure to read it especially if you don’t have a lot of experience with rivet nuts.

Thread 'Bed Utility rail installation'
Bed Utility rail installation

 

[Gren71]

Those utility rails can be a pain to install. This thread helped me and I tried to contribute as well. Make sure to read it especially if you don’t have a lot of experience with rivet nuts.

Thread 'Bed Utility rail installation'
Bed Utility rail installation

thankfully I have installed a couple sets over the years so I was prepared haha. I had my Rivet Nut Tool from amazon and knew to clean the holes out first and not to over tighten them when first setting the nuts. The installed was smooth for me up until the tool broke on the last nut. But they went in fine and are nice to have again. I was able to re install a swing out tool box that I modified to hang from the rails when I have my gladiator. Works well in the ram now.

 

[HemiDude]

Started the spring cleaning. Took out half of plastic bag of garbage from the passenger side and the backseat.

Also tuned my subwoofer a bit. Trying to get it properly dialed in before finally placing it behind the backseat.

Coincidentally, I also cleaned the inside of the truck on Sunday. Found a jar of pizza sauce under the passenger seat... I can't recall when I bought that, so it is amazing to me that it wasn't broken