Your truck's suspension does an adequate job of maintaining control during most driving situations, but if you push your truck hard on a daily basis or if you enjoy turns and you don't like slowing down for them, you need to read this story closely. When your truck begins to turn, the cab wants to "roll" over because it is transferring all of the weight to the outside wheels. The result of this excessive body roll is the front end "plowing", which we call understeer. Basically, your truck does not want to turn, it wants to keep going straight and oftentimes, in these situations, you lose control. This can especially be dangerous when hauling a heavy load, towing, or when you find yourself trying to enjoy an empty road with twists and turns. With a truck having a higher center of gravity (listen up lifted truck owners), larger and stronger antisway bars are the key to maintaining control during all driving conditions.
Even with our bolt-on air suspension from Ride Tech on our '09 Ram, we found the 26-inch-wheel-equipped Dodge to be a real handful when turning at speeds. This was made obvious by our extensive testing, where we made several passes through our 600-foot slalom course. Seeing the '09 Ram's cab rolling around like a container ship, we knew what had to be done-we needed new antisway bars. A quick call to ADDCO had a new front and rear sway bar shipped to us in no time. Made of high-carbon steel, each bar is hardened and stress-relieved for superior strength and stiffness. Optional urethane bushings, heat-treated 5,000-pound tensile end-link bolts, and heavy-duty, plated washers ensure the bars remain rigid and keep the truck planted. ADDCO may not be the first name that comes to mind for sway bars, but you may be surprised to learn that they private label for many companies and for 39 years, they've been making suspension components to make your truck safer. Check out the story to see just how big of a difference the new ADDCO bars made on our project Ram.
At our Truckin' test facility,...
At our Truckin' test facility, we made a few passes through the slalom for a baseline. Body roll was excessive and the Ram felt like it was "pushing", also known as front end diving, into the corners. The best speed was 55 mph.
With a solid before number...
With a solid before number established, we began removing the factory front sway bar. First, we used a floor jack to lift the Ram and then we slid some jackstands under the frame. Using a 15mm socket and wrench, the endlinks were removed and the 17mm bolts on the bushing mounts were removed.
With the old hollow bar off...
With the old hollow bar off of the truck and in the parts bin, we moved onto the new ADDCO solid bars. The front measures 1 1/2 inches around and the rear is a 1-inch piece. New polyurethane bushings were included to keep the bars tight against the crossmember.
Luckily, we had some leftover...
Luckily, we had some leftover bushing grease from our Energy Suspension install on another project that we were able to use to lube the new ADDCO bushings.
The bushings have a slit in...
The bushings have a slit in them and we opened them up and slid them over the bar. We were then able to add the steel bushing mounts to the lubed bushings.
As you can see, there is a...
As you can see, there is a spacer on the backside of the bushing mount that came in the Ride Tech kit designed to push the sway bar away from the airbags. Unfortunately, we found out the bushing mount bolt holes were not lined up and the bolts wouldn't thread in.
Thankfully, we brought a drill...
Thankfully, we brought a drill with us, along with a Unibit. After some profanity from getting a metal shaving in our eye (remember to always wear eye protection) we had the bushing ready to be bolted in place.
With the holes drilled out,...
With the holes drilled out, we were able to bolt on the ADDCO bar and move onto the endlinks.
Using a jack to compress the...
Using a jack to compress the A-arms (after letting air out of the ‘bags), we installed the endlinks using the original hardware.