2017 Laramie Crew Cab

mdifilippo said:

If only we could run out some of the New Yorkers... (for reference, I live on the coast, from May until September all the @sshole New Yorkers come and ruin the beach and the roads). I do enjoy flashing them with my lightbar at night though when they want to do 20MPH on a 40MPH road.

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NJ isn't so bad, I just don't get the tolls, like WTF, and then the road were not even that good.

But that light bar works soooooooo good on the ******* NY's!!!!


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Looking good!

Snagged a quick shot before leaving my office tonight

Been awhile!! I ended up creating an Instagram for my truck (mikes1500 if you want to follow) and haven't been on here at all lately. However today I got around to finally blacking out my wheels, and also rotated them. I also, while I had the truck up on jack stands took off the front air dam from below the from bumper. Got a couple other projects that I'm still working to wrap up so I'll post those once I do!

From the day I bought the truck I LOVED how these wheels looked, much nicer profiles then the "black out edition" wheels I think. Now that they are black, its perfect.

How’s the led taillight bar holding up?

Love your truck btw, done a great job!


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AFMoulton said:

How’s the led taillight bar holding up?

Love your truck btw, done a great job!


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Thanks man! Lightbar is holding up great!! I may want to redo the trim pieces after the winter, I know I can improve upon them but for now they are good so if after the winter months they need to be painted again I'll probably pull the grill and do it again.

AFMoulton I realized you asked about the tailgate light not the front lightbar haha. It's holding up well! No issues other then over time I"ve realized it's not mounted totally straight, some of the LEDs are blocked by the rear bumper. I'm not sure if I could pull it off safely enough to remount it so will probably leave it until I replace it. It does appear hazier then when I originally bought it but it doesn't effect the light output.

mdifilippo said:

AFMoulton I realized you asked about the tailgate light not the front lightbar haha. It's holding up well! No issues other then over time I"ve realized it's not mounted totally straight, some of the LEDs are blocked by the rear bumper. I'm not sure if I could pull it off safely enough to remount it so will probably leave it until I replace it. It does appear hazier then when I originally bought it but it doesn't effect the light output.

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No worries my next questions was going to be about your front light bar! LoL so you answered both! Thanks brother, again truck looks great and the green is growing on me!


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It's funny, I don't mind the green but I definitely have plans to wrap it in the future. I'm thinking about going a 2 tone red/black. Red on the majority of the body and bed, black on the roof and pillars.

Next up! While I was in between coats of plastidip on the wheels I made up brackets and mounted 2 pods that came with my lightbar onto the rear of the truck. I actually ended up using one of the mounting points for the rear hitch assembly. Wired the lights up to an RF receiver (the same way my front light bar is setup) and set my second Homelink button to trigger it. Overall very happy with how it all came out.



I made up a simple wire harness which taps into an existing harness I ran to the driver-side rambox for a 12 volt auxiliary power port. This feeds 12 volts into an eMylo RF receiver which I placed in the Rambox. This will allow me to trigger the lights via either a remote or from the Homelink button in the cab.

The brackets are really simple, I picked up some 2 inch aluminum flat bar from Home Depot, put a few bends into it and sprayed them black. They work, aren't anything fancy but allow me to aim the lights enough. Using two bolt locations where the factory hitch mounts places the lights just on the inside of the tail pipes and gives a good throw of light.

Two videos of them operating
https://youtu.be/NSfSCzUMLo8
https://youtu.be/EA3QC9cIEs0

Just realized I never shared my custom tailgate emblem that I made up for Halloween. I really need to get back to posting on here more sorry guys!

3D printed the skull and created a backplate on my CNC to replace the original ram head emblem. Added 2 red LED's into the eyes and wired them up to the brake lights. Looks awesome, defintely have gotten some compliments on it and a few stares as people see it in the wild.

Removing the old emblem was a piece of cake, took some dental floss, folded in half and twisted "sawed" through the tape on the old emblem and pulled it off. Cleaned up the area, ran my wires through the hole in the tailgate and used some more double sided emblem tape to attach the new one. I already am working on my next one, and may come up with a christmas / winter themed emblem too.

That is bad ass! I️ love this truck, great work sir!


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AFMoulton said:

That is bad ass! I️ love this truck, great work sir!


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Thank you very much! Really appreciate that!

Wow been a long time since I've updated this thread! This winter hasn't allowed for much change on the outside but inside I've definetly been playing with some things. The truck now has a Blackvue 2 Channel Dashcam system running in it which I absolutely love. I've also swapped out the Uconnect 8.4N with a 10.4 Android head unit. Installed a cheap front camera as well that is really great quality for a mere $25 price tag, snuck it into the front grill and can pull it up at any time to check. I'm also switching over all of my existing lighting to be ran off it.

Previously my bed lighting & under body lighting were controlled via bluetooth through my phone but now I've moved to WiFi control and am basically turning my truck into a "smart truck". I'm also going to be switching the light bar and rear pods from RF triggers to WiFi triggers so the headunit can control all of it.

Rock lights are installed I just need a few more hours of no rain one day to run my harnesses. Hoping to be doing a Carven Exhaust sometime this spring or summer and hopefully a level. A headlight build is in the works as well, I'm trying to get my hands on some black projectors and not break the bank so hopefully that will be completed by summer. And.... now for some pictures

Been a while since I've updated my build thread. Latest updates are rocklights installed and fully operational as well as I installed a carven progressive exhaust.

The rock lights are RGBW with the white activating with my under body lights to act as courtesy lights when the door is open or the truck is unlocked as well as full color control just like the bed and under body. Updated all my controllers as well so now they can be controlled via the new headunit or any other smart device connected to the truck's wifi connection. One controller handles the rocklights while another one handles the bed and underbody allow for some cool color combos.



The carven exhaust was a good deal from a forum member, after having to run out to get a 15mm deep socket the process was pretty simple. Drop the rear end up onto some ramps to get some more room broke loose the nuts and wiggled out the stock muffler. The stock muffler clamps could not be oriented in much worse of a position, leaves very little room to get any leverage on them, very glad I did it only after the truck went through one harsh winter. The passenger side pipes went back on pretty easily but I did fight a bunch with the driver side, because of the extra bends in it to get around the spare tire and two mounting points it was tricky to get the pipe inserted fully. I think I may need to get back under her shortly and get it the rest of the way (probably off about 1/4 of an inch or so). The sound is AMAZING, there is with out a doubt some cab noise in my truck but shouldn't be bad once I get use to driving it. I'm glad I went with the progressive and not the competitor after hearing the progressive on the truck.


Video of cold start
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPacq4PBqcYogV0OMxEQ5ehBsTIdVpxOYFeAN0c

Truck is looking a little different suddenly . Dipped it this weekend. Steps and mud flaps are going back on still just not in these photos.

mdifilippo said:

Truck is looking a little different suddenly . Dipped it this weekend. Steps and mud flaps are going back on still just not in these photos.
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Did you do it yourself? How was it? What kid/color did you use?

Plus the color is badass!!!!


2018 2500 6.4 4x4 4.10 Amsoil SS 0w-40
2016 Durango 5.7 AWD 3.07 Amsoil SS 5W-30
1996 Nissan Altima 2.4 Amsoil SS 5W-30

AFMoulton said:

Did you do it yourself? How was it? What kid/color did you use?

Plus the color is badass!!!!

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Thanks man, color is Frozen Blue performance series by DYC. I did do it myself, previously I had only ever dipped with rattle cans and that was bumpers and wheels, totally different doing an entire truck. The material lays down amazingly, a lot of room for error for sure before it shows. I watched TONS of DYC videos over the months, one thing if you ever watch one is you'll notice they rarely do the roof and since the cars are always pretty small (he once did a single cab ram), he moves across the entire vehicle to keep it as uniform as possible. Well on a truck this size I found that was pretty difficult. I think when I do it again I'll try to focus more on a panel at a time.

What I mean is, to keep the finish as smooth as possible you need to keep an even, wet edge. So I think focusing on small sections (kind of like when working with a polish or wax) I'd be able to lay it much cleaner. Also it was tiring, from setting up a 10x20 tent, to tapping & prepping, to shooting 7 gallons of paint I walked back in the house about 12 hours later. Looking back after putting down the first color I wish I had stopped for the day and sprayed the final blue color the next day. The spray gun began to "gunk up" and I was getting tired, so my nice smooth base coats ended up getting half @$$ed top coats put over them.

I also got lazy on prep, I skipped a major area in taping and that was the door moldings, I thought there would be enough of a gap that I would be safe but sadly when I opened the doors (even doing so carefully and using a razor to cut the gap) I did tear a significant amount of the dip. I have some more material and some thinner on the way to start work on repairing what I can before having to pell and respray.

Honestly I'm still glad I did it, I went into it thinking "worst case, I peel the entire truck and go back to my oem paint".

Man thanks for the in depth response. If you don’t want to post pics I totally understand! But as someone who is about to dip a 22 year old car, as it’s much cheaper than painting it I’d love to see anything you think I should spend more time on.

I can’t get over how awesome that blue is! From the pics it looks like you did an amazing job! I can understand how traveling down the entire distance of the crew cab truck would be a pain, and totally understand breaking it up into smaller sections.

This is what I’m going to do.



2018 2500 6.4 4x4 4.10 Amsoil SS 0w-40
2016 Durango 5.7 AWD 3.07 Amsoil SS 5W-30
1996 Nissan Altima 2.4 Amsoil SS 5W-30

That should be pretty easy as far as coverage goes for sure. Chat with someone over at DYC.com their support is great and came in really handy both before and during. Ask them what size kit to go with and then add on an extra can of final color. I went with the "extra large" and only added 1 can of blue... I wish I had added at least 1 can of the base color AND 1 can of the blue. Always better to have some extra, I just ordered another gallon of each for repairs. Also, i bought the advanced turbine sprayer, a little more money but again seemed worth it.

I used cardboard to test my spray pattern and distance with, I also shot on that cardboard every time I refilled my paint cup and that definetly helped, it always seemed to spatter for the first trigger pull when reloading the cup. Tape, tape, tape and tape. Don't leave anything to chance, if you don't want it painted make sure its covered up well. The top that i used on the bottom of the window trim didn't stick well and now I need to go after it with dip dissolve.

Practice your "plan of attack" before actually spraying. Yes, look like a fool and walk around the car with the sprayer pretending to spray. It'll give you a good idea of problem areas or spots that you may have to turn the sprayer a certain way to fully cover. Be quick on pulling the tape after the last coat, using another set of hands can really help but if you are doing it solo I would say once you hit the side of the vehicle you're on pull the tape. Last thing if you have someone else there with you to help have them the turbine air hose, it is a bit clunky and the last thing you want it to do is to get stuck, pull off, OR hit/rub the car.

Roll down your windows, wrap your plastic inside and then bring the windows back up. I just rolled mine down today and found some over spray on the edge of the glass. Any other questions feel free to ask.