Carli Suspension Front End Upgrade Kit 03-13 Ram 2500 | 03-12 Ram 3500

2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

Has the steering on your Dodge Ram lost that tight feel? It is very common for the front end of these heavy trucks to loosen up after seeing some miles. Daimler-Chrysler has sent out many TSB's regarding excessive play in the O.E.M. track bar and weak performance in the O.E.M. steering stabilizer.

You may also hear from your dealer that there is an allowable amount of play in the ball joints before they need to be replaced. We have seen hundreds of trucks pass through the shop with any or all of these problems. Symptoms may vary from a slight shutter in the steering wheel to the dreaded death wobble.

Solution: Carli has put together the Front End Upgrade Kit to properly correct these issues the first time. By including all the key front end components in a package we can guarantee that your truck will feel and handle like a completely different truck. Tighter and more precise steering are both features that you can expect after installing this system.

Why it works:The reason that the Front End Upgrade Kit will make such a dramatic improvement is because it replaces the three most problematic components in the front end:

The O.E.M track bar which has vulcanized rubber bushings on both ends. The rubber bushings are prone to breakdown over time which will cause excessive side-to-side movement of the front axle. Our Adjustable track Bar has a 3/4" chromoly rod end with a 7/8" threaded shaft at the axle end, and a heavy duty Delrin bushing at the frame end. This will eliminate any unwarranted movement from the axle and holds a much longer service life.
The O.E.M. steering stabilizer is what is called an "oil shock". This means that there is no gas pressure to create resistance when cycling the shock. This type of stabilizer is limited to how much dampening it can provide. Our Stainless Steel Low Mount Steering Stabilizer uses an Internal Floating Piston (IFP) style stabilizer which has a separate chamber to house the nitrogen gas keeping it separate from the oil. This makes the stabilizer much more effective when reacting to sudden direction changes and "steering shimmy". Our stabilizer is also 100% rebuildable.
The O.E.M. upper ball joint (actually a "pivot joint") uses a soft internal bronze bushing as the lubricant between the pin and the cup. The internal bushing can only tolerate a certain amount of load before it deforms and creates space for the pin to move laterally. Our Heavy Duty Upper Ball Joints are a 2 tiered design machined out of 4130 chromoly and heat treated to our specified hardness. This gives more than 100% more surface area for the ball joint to distribute the load. We eliminate any sort of bushing by using a dry aerospace type lubricant which is applied by machine. We have also incorporated internal grease ports for the grease to distribute evenly through the whole assembly.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
We keep referring to "08.5+ Steering" or the "09 Steering Upgrade". This is a retrofit kit for 03-08 trucks that is a factory retrofit kit. It is Dodge's solution to Death Wobble. In other words, a solution to a problem that they deny exists. It ties your front wheels together allowing them to work in unison. With the current set-up, when things start to wear your front wheels can start to toe in and out independently. Over the course of a few bumps at high speed, you can find your truck out of control and hopefully, you just end up in the ditch.
If you have a 2008.5-2013 Ram 2500 or a 2008.5-2012 Ram 3500, your truck came from the factory with T-Style Steering. However, if you have a 2003-2008, your truck originally came equipped with Y-Style, but it could have been upgraded to the T-Style. The easiest method to determine if you have the upgraded "T-Style Steering" is to inspect the centerlink bar that the steering stabilizer is attached to. If your stabilizer mounts to the center link bar with two u-bolts and a plate, you have the T-Style steering. However, if your stabilizer mounts to the center link bar with a bolt that runs through the middle of the centerlink bar via a hole in the bar, you have the Y-Style steering.