Are new UCA’s necessary?

I have a 2014 ram 1500. I know this has probably been exacerbated beyond belief at this point but my questions have not been answered by the info I’ve found. That said are new UCA’s necessary to level the truck 2 inches? I’m not going to be putting on cheap spacers I’m looking to either put fox 2.0’s on all four corners or put bilstein 6112’s on front and 5160’s on the rear. I hear from the local four wheel parts that they are necessary but when they try to replace them with cheap stock replacements I wonder if it’s really necessary especially considering Carli and Icon and Thurman’s only replace the strut and a few other items but neither of those high end kits replace the UCA’s within there kits until you get super high end. Also any opinions on fox over the bilstein 6112’s?

Thanks in advance!

I believe the ucas are necessary when you use spacers but struts that compress the spring technically don’t change the geometry. Just preload so the vehicle doesn’t squat under weight. Bilsteins or fox or icon just preload the spring so everything is still factory lengths. Spacers move everything down 2” so now the suspension travel has changed and puts more stress in the ucas. Some places will tell you that you need to change the uca so Incase anything happens they aren’t liable. I believe the mevotechs are factory replacements but to my knowledge may have stronger ball joints because people who had issues with factory ucas and switched don’t seem to have the problems with the mevotechs. I personally bought zone ucas because they change the geometry of the uca to account for lifted vehicles


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UCS'a are never a bad idea spacer or strut. That being said if you use a spacer to lift the front you need them. They put the upper control arm ball joint at a horrible angle under extension enough to pop it out. The struts do not have the same effect. I have the stock uppers, bilsteins at full 2.8 inches and have had tires off the ground off roading from unseen holes and have had 0 issues.

With Bilstein, UCA is not neccessary, even with spacers, if its less than 2.5" you should be fine. I upgraded mine just because the MEVOTECH is inexpensive, and offer lub port for the ball joint. I am planning on future 6" lift with a 4" lift kit and set my Bilstein at 2.8. in that case I have the option between a 4" lift or a 6" lift.

If you are lifting more than 3" using a cheap lift kit (Tuff County) and dont drop the axle with brackets, I would get a set of fabtech uni-ball UCAs.

I would not go with a univalve personally unless it’s strictly an off-road truck. For a daily driver I would use some UCa’s. I put some on with my zone 4 inch lift and love them. Also uniballs tend to make more noise and require more maintenance


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IMO 2" or less lift UCA's are not necessary. They would be a nice addition but not needed. If you do UCA I would NOT go cheap. get a quality brand, they will hold up much better

Nick@GotExhaust said:

IMO 2" or less lift UCA's are not necessary. They would be a nice addition but not needed. If you do UCA I would NOT go cheap. get a quality brand, they will hold up much better

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I agree, if your using bils or fox to do your 2” then uca’s might not be needed but definitely not going to regret using them. I had the 4” lift from zone and ended up using the zone uca because I noticed a ball joking starting to pop which is unusual


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oldstyle17 said:

I agree, if your using bils or fox to do your 2” then uca’s might not be needed but definitely not going to regret using them. I had the 4” lift from zone and ended up using the zone uca because I noticed a ball joking starting to pop which is unusual


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+1 for Zone 4" lift and their UCAs for concern on this very point.

I may hold off on the ICA’s then so I can invest the money on nice struts and shocks. Do you guys have any feedback on the Fox 2.0’s or bilstein 6112’s? It doesn’t look like too many rams have tried out the 6112’s yet.

Wramey said:

I may hold off on the ICA’s then so I can invest the money on nice struts and shocks. Do you guys have any feedback on the Fox 2.0’s or bilstein 6112’s? It doesn’t look like too many rams have tried out the 6112’s yet.

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I ended up with the fox 2.5 coilovers to get rid of the spacers on my 4” lift and love them. Ride great and roll so smooth over everything. I had bil 5100’s previous to them and they were great as well but not quite as good. Still have 5100’s on rear and going to put fox 2.0 on the rear soon. Cannot day anything about the 6112’s and haven’t really heard of anyone running them


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