Wish someone made a quality complete drop kit

The more I read through these forums, the more it bothers me...


It seems there really is not a good lowering solution for these trucks.... I mean, you either run one of two choices to drop: McGaughy 2/4 or Belltech 2/4. Then you need to get all the other associated parts to make the drop to actually make it ride at a bare minimum as good (with the goal of riding better) as the stock set up handles ... I.E.


QA1's
Sway bar end links front and rear
Panhard Bar
Upper and lower control arms
Upper adjustable ball joint



Then one may say, look.... you can not go to a vendor and buy a complete kit but you can go to several vendors and buy all the needed parts to have a "complete" kit so what is the big deal? We'll.. even of the listed parts, I still have not seen reliable data that the only 2 available adjustable upper ball joints and the few available sway bar end links to assist with ride quality when dropping our trucks are actually reliable... It seems every other week I am reading something saying that a part everyone thought worked well actually does not and has failed after a relatively short time.


Do y'all think a vendor will ever put some time and money into R&D to make a complete (reliable and well sorted) kit for these trucks to do a 2/4 or even a 3/5 drop (mostly just a 2/4 since the 3/5 is a bit more extreme and probably more difficult to keep the truck handling well without extensive modification). Or.... is there just not enough demand for a vendor to spend the time and money to do so?


I know I would be willing to spend the money to buy a well engineered kit. It is kind of frustrating that the 'Sport' edition of the ram has no changes to the suspension at all.... It doesn't seem that any car manufacturer actually makes a real sport truck, or even anything that somewhat resembles a real sport truck (i.e. decent susp. setup from factor, lowered, fairly quick, etc.)


I guess I come from a place of mind that I never had experienced this before. With my previous vehicles I lowered I put in performance coilovers and not only did they greatly improve handling but also lowered the vehicle a fair amount. Granted those were cars and did not have a foot of space between tire and fender to begin with (exaggeration) but still....

I was pretty pleased with my Belltech 2/4. Just retained the factory front shocks, used the Street Performance rear shocks. Then for cornering, and the Express didn't have a rear sway bar, so did the Hellwig front and rear and drove like a dream

Graygoose said:

I was pretty pleased with my Belltech 2/4. Just retained the factory front shocks, used the Street Performance rear shocks. Then for cornering, and the Express didn't have a rear sway bar, so did the Hellwig front and rear and drove like a dream

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What about your front end alignment? Are you able to get it into spec without adjustable upper ball joints? Or close to spec?

What did you do for sway bar end links?


You did not change out your panhard bar or rear upper/lower control arms?

I had the Mcgaughys 44050 spindle 2/4 drop ony RCSB and was pretty happy. The spindles provided stock factory alingment and excellent ride quality. Some critics don't like the added track width. The rear I found a little soft and would bottom out, I would have added airlift bags had I kept the truck.

mine seems fine with the BellTech complete setup, Spohn adjustable pan hard bar as well. Swaybars, shocks front and back and the ride is really quite good. I to wish the factory would send the R/T's to the dealer already lowered but with close to 3000.00 like mentioned the ride is good. Oh aligned to factory specs for another 150.00

THETANK said:

mine seems fine with the BellTech complete setup, Spohn adjustable pan hard bar as well. Swaybars, shocks front and back and the ride is really quite good. I to wish the factory would send the R/T's to the dealer already lowered but with close to 3000.00 like mentioned the ride is good. Oh aligned to factory specs for another 150.00

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What shocks are you running?

What swaybar end links are you running?

How were you able to get the front into spec without an adjustable upper ball joint? From what I had read on other post, it is physically impossible to get it into spec when doing a 2" drop if you run the stock upper ball joint.

N1ck said:

I had the Mcgaughys 44050 spindle 2/4 drop ony RCSB and was pretty happy. The spindles provided stock factory alingment and excellent ride quality. Some critics don't like the added track width. The rear I found a little soft and would bottom out, I would have added airlift bags had I kept the truck.

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The main issue I have heard about the McGaughy kit is the added unsprung weight affects the handling in addition to the stance (front wheels pushed outwards).

So you did not do any Spohn parts in the rear? Upp/lower control arms and/or panhard bar?

Best lowering kit ive had for a 09+ Ram is my Ride Tech Shockwaves and sleeves. combined with Spohn arms and Airlift 3P. Works flawless

Ak47bravo said:

What about your front end alignment? Are you able to get it into spec without adjustable upper ball joints? Or close to spec?

What did you do for sway bar end links?


You did not change out your panhard bar or rear upper/lower control arms?

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Yup, drove great, well within spec. I used Hellwig endlinks in rear, no other changes.

Ak47bravo said:

The main issue I have heard about the McGaughy kit is the added unsprung weight affects the handling in addition to the stance (front wheels pushed outwards).

So you did not do any Spohn parts in the rear? Upp/lower control arms and/or panhard bar?

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Nope, just bolted the kit on and got it aligned. I had no vibrations or swaying at high speeds. My truck had a factory sway bar.

Ground Force 2/3 drop worked great on my RCSB and alignment is spot on for the last 15k miles. N1ck knows what I'm talking about.

Mine is bouncy I don't know what to do about it. I've got the ground force front springs.

How much air pressure are you running in your tires and the front is bouncy?

The problem is that it's a truck. No SERIOUS performance suspension place is going to waste their time on it.

So you get companies like Belltech that are more concerned with looks than performance. That's how it goes.

The only real option is to fork out serious money and get a custom setup done. No off the shelf item is really going to be a good performance deal right now.

I was very happy with the set I pieced together...

What Dubstep said.... as all the pieces and parts you can put together are good and will yield a nice ride and still be better than stock they are still far from a "race tuned" suspension. Nothing will probably ever exist in that department cause the market just isn't there, especially in anything other than a RCSB. A vehicle with the wheelbase of a 4 door truck will never handle performance wise.
Now the little RCSB has some really good aspects to it as in engine placement and wheelbase but weight is a downside, but the market just isn't there unless its a small niche company.

Only thing I can see anyone doing like Matt (Hemi450hp) is putting together a suspension package using various venders if a shop has sales agreements with those venders.... Might be a good idea for Moes performance to do Hint hint

My opinion is that too many guys are trying to overthink this. A simple Belltech kit with upgraded Hellwig swaybars will be perfect for 99% of people. You dont NEED adjustable ball joints, panhard bar, control arms, $1000 set of adustable shocks, and shorter front swaybar endlinks.

Sure, adding these parts will help make it as close as can be to a true performance suspension, but that is overkill for the majority of people. The Belltech kit with just upgraded swaybars will handle much better than stock without riding too rough. There are thousands of guys running this setup that are very happy with it, but about 15-20 on the forums that claim you need to buy $3000 worth of parts just to make it bearable to drive. I just feel that some guys are trying to overthink this and complicate things too much.

Hemi450hp said:

My opinion is that too many guys are trying to overthink this. A simple Belltech kit with upgraded Hellwig swaybars will be perfect for 99% of people. You dont NEED adjustable ball joints, panhard bar, control arms, $1000 set of adustable shocks, and shorter front swaybar endlinks.

Sure, adding these parts will help make it as close as can be to a true performance suspension, but that is overkill for the majority of people. The Belltech kit with just upgraded swaybars will handle much better than stock without riding too rough. There are thousands of guys running this setup that are very happy with it, but about 15-20 on the forums that claim you need to buy $3000 worth of parts just to make it bearable to drive. I just feel that some guys are trying to overthink this and complicate things too much.

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Are your comments applicable to crew cabs as well? Would Hellwig sways be a noticeable improvement for a CC sport with factory sways? Still no need for aftermarket endlinks on a CC?

Part of the reason I chose to do a 2" rear drop and nothing more was because of comments from the guys you refer to. But I haven't ruled out Beltech 4/2 in the future.

dkmesa said:

Are your comments applicable to crew cabs as well? Would Hellwig sways be a noticeable improvement for a CC sport with factory sways? Still no need for aftermarket endlinks on a CC?

Part of the reason I chose to do a 2" rear drop and nothing more was because of comments from the guys you refer to. But I haven't ruled out Beltech 4/2 in the future.

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The swaybars are a noticeable improvement on the 4 door trucks as well. I lowered both my 2011 crew cab 4wd, and now my 2015 crew cab 4wd. Both trucks came with a factory rear swaybar, and there was a very noticeable improvement in handling by just replacing the rear swaybar alone. The stock rear swaybar is hollow where the Hellwig bars are solid chromoly. The Hellwig rear swaybar is also adjustable, so you can set it up to fix your driving style. I like to keep mine on the softer side because I am not a very aggressive driver on the street. Someone that enjoys taking corners at 80-100mph would want to set it on the stiffer side.

And you do need shorter rear endlinks when you go to a 4" rear drop, but those are included in the lowering kits.

Hemi450hp said:

My opinion is that too many guys are trying to overthink this. A simple Belltech kit with upgraded Hellwig swaybars will be perfect for 99% of people. You dont NEED adjustable ball joints, panhard bar, control arms, $1000 set of adustable shocks, and shorter front swaybar endlinks.


(It was my understanding that when lowered you had to run shorter endlinks to allow the sway bar to be properly aligned for it to perform the way it was designed? Is that not correct? If so I just do not understand why someone would spend money on an aftermarket swaybar and not buy another component needed for that swaybar to perform properly. Why waste the money in the first place on a performance part when that part is not being used the way it is supposed to?)


Sure, adding these parts will help make it as close as can be to a true performance suspension, but that is overkill for the majority of people. The Belltech kit with just upgraded swaybars will handle much better than stock without riding too rough. There are thousands of guys running this setup that are very happy with it, but about 15-20 on the forums that claim you need to buy $3000 worth of parts just to make it bearable to drive. I just feel that some guys are trying to overthink this and complicate things too much. (I think I am one of those people overthinking it )

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My main thing is that most the cars I had modded were
1. Known to be great handling cars
2. HUGE aftermarket available
So to get a great suspension package you could go to 1 vendor and buy everything you needed and there had been the R&D to develop the package to ensure everything worked well with all the components.


I guess I am not used to having to buy multiple components from 5+ different vendors to piece together a well rounded suspension package. I understand that these are trucks.... and that people hardly EVER race a truck on a road course or much less try to set them up to handle well.



I don't ever expect a truck to handle like a sports car. My main concern was from all the threads I had read, it seemed that you pretty much had to get a new pandhard bar, and full rear spohn control arms (so you do not affect the pinion angle negatively), and QA1's (so you aren't bottoming out) just to allow the "lowered truck" to drive at least as good as it does stock. (when I say at least as good I mean, the truck can be controlled in turns, no weird movement from the rear, no bottoming out.)



It seemed that if you did not do the panhard bar then you rear end would do very funny stuff when going over bumps in a turn (there is a lot of that here in houston) as well as undue stress on the driveshaft and connections if you did not get the upper and lower control arms to adjust the rear axle.



I want to lower my truck badly (I think the R/T looks pretty bad at the stock height, as much space as a baja truck!!).... but if lowering it comes at a cost of a poorer ride quality I.E. hitting bump stops, rear end swaying due to improperly set-up panhard bar, etc. then I just won't do it at all. I do not mind a stiffer ride.... that is not a big deal, but the other negative things I have heard I can not live with. However, if done properly ($$$$) it sounds like those issues will not happen.



Now I am basing all of this off of the many threads and post I have read... so no actual real world experience with these mods on this platform. Unfortunately I do not have $2,000+ to spend on suspension right now (If I did, I would just pull the trigger now on it). I may just do all the suspension components except the QA1's for now just to get the truck lowered and then add the shocks later on.




I do appreciate everyone's knowledge and experience. I know this is something that has been beaten to death.