Onboard Air System and Train Horn Install

I have the same 2.5 gal tank and I went to go mount it in the same place the OP did, but I only have 18" longitudinal clearance between a cab mount and the rail section damper (14 crew cab). Aft of that, I have 22" clearance between the cab mount and the in floor storage box. With the components installed in the tank, I need 33-36" of clearance. Anyone run into this problem?

From the OP's photos, it appears there is either no rail section damper or it was removed. I'm stuck for mounting locations and would love any suggestions anyone may have. Unfortunately I am unable to mount the tank in the bed.

ISKRA said:

I have the same 2.5 gal tank and I went to go mount it in the same place the OP did, but I only have 18" longitudinal clearance between a cab mount and the rail section damper (14 crew cab). Aft of that, I have 22" clearance between the cab mount and the in floor storage box. With the components installed in the tank, I need 33-36" of clearance. Anyone run into this problem?

From the OP's photos, it appears there is either no rail section damper or it was removed. I'm stuck for mounting locations and would love any suggestions anyone may have. Unfortunately I am unable to mount the tank in the bed.

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Can you send a pic of your location? I didn't remove anything when mounting. I believe I wrote this for my 1500 but the steps were the same for my 2500.

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I have my compressor mounted In The same location on my 2014. I mounted the tank and horns where the spare used to go.


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Yeah the only difference between my two installs are the horns are sitting on a suspension cross member on my 2500

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Now the install is done, we need dashcam videos of scaring the **** of some unsuspecting *******.

chri5k said:

Now the install is done, we need dashcam videos of scaring the **** of some unsuspecting *******.

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I actually have sirens too(for first responder purposes) and when using those in tandem with the horn... well it gives quite a scare

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jgruberman said:

Can you send a pic of your location? I didn't remove anything when mounting. I believe I wrote this for my 1500 but the steps were the same for my 2500.

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Here are the views of the passenger side. I have a ‘14 1500 Tradesman crew cab short bed. The first photo is with the camera at the rear wheel looking forward. The next two photos show the space between the in floor storage and the rail section damper. The RSD is roughly at the same location as the transfer case cross member. To recap, the longitudinal distance from the cab support to the RSD is 22”, and 18” from the aft end of the storage bin to the rear cab support. The Viair 2.5 gal tank with attachments is roughly 33-36” in length.

From initial research, the rail section dampers (there’s another on the driver side, same location) are to assist with the ride. They are about 8 lbs each, but the engineers put them there for a purpose so I am hesitant to remove them.

I can’t lose the bed space or my spare for all the back woods/mountain driving I do so I’m stuck on where to put it. I was about to give up and buy the Truck Lungs nerf bar air tanks, but I think the company went under as their website is down.

I would appreciate any ideas anyone has. I’m about ready to duct tape this thing to the bumper!

Interesting. I don't have those on mine, or either of my Rams for that matter. Mine fit there perfectly... WITHOUT that RSD. Maybe do some research for its purpose? Can't be critical if it's not on all trucks? Not sure...

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My backup plan was to mount the tank where I had my spare tire. Is that an option for you?

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jgruberman said:

Interesting. I don't have those on mine, or either of my Rams for that matter. Mine fit there perfectly... WITHOUT that RSD. Maybe do some research for its purpose? Can't be critical if it's not on all trucks? Not sure...

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I will do that. It’s odd things like this aren’t the same across each chassis. Thanks for the fast replies

Update (research/initial experimentation):

Ram has this listed as a “Rail Section Damper” in their chassis parts listing, but there are similar devices throughout all vehicles. For this post I’ll refer to them as ‘dampers.’ I’m an aerospace mechanical engineer so please let me know if I get too into the language.

Dampers are designed to cancel out vibrations (both mechanical (conductive) and auditory (convective)). I’m discussing the chassis damper here but there are others made for the exhaust, transmission, engine, etc. From my google research on forums, the collective majority recommend not to remove them because they are there for a purpose. A small percentage removed them, and half of that small percentage said there was no noticeable difference. The other half did notice a difference and decided to put the dampers back on.

So I took mine off this morning:


Four 16mm nuts came off very easily. Each side weighs about 8 lbs, and is attached to the bracket by rubber so it shakes. I then drove 60 miles on city, highway, back roads with zero noticeable difference. No increase of regular road vibrations (idle, stabilized speed, and acceleration), and no difference in the normal auditory spectrum. What I can’t see or determine by removing these dampers are structural cracks/failures starting to form if in theory the vibrations are now “not dampened,” which would take a while to even show up.

In conclusion, I feel that removing these dampers to make room for the air tank are my only solution with accepting a risk of something going wrong structurally down the road, however, there is zero noticeable difference with them being removed. IMHO, since not all vehicles have them even in the same year/chassis, I would imagine that during the manufacturing process it met the criteria to have the dampers installed. It could also be that I have added weight of my block and tackle, pioneer kit, Etc that may somehow aid in dampening the vibrations. Since I can reattach the dampers, I can remove the air tank if any problems arise.

If anyone has access to an autocad or solidworks file of the Ram chassis, I can run it through a dynamic vibrations test to get a definitive answer.

My recommendation is if you have the same problem I do with limited space, I would remove the dampers to see if there is a noticeable difference before making any modifications. If you decide to permanently remove them, you’ll have to accept that it may or may not cause problems after some time. Hope this helps

Awesome pictures and details! Thank-you so much for taking the time to help!!

I just ordered the Vixen 5 gallon tank with dual compressors set up. I have a dually with 37" tires and am thinking about bagging the RV in the future and need some power..

I am thinking about putting the compresson and horn on a dual relay. No power to compressor unless truck is on. And no power to horn unless truck is on. I have an after market remote start and requires 3 lock button clicks on fob and neighbors would not like a train horn blast at 630am..just seems like to much to have a on off switch for horn..

You got me thinking about a relay. I currently have a semi air horn running off my 150 PSI onboard air system and its loud! The problem is when the alarm arms it beeps and scares the hell out of my wife. Yea I know its funny the first few times. I eventually installed a 3 second delay on the air valve so the stock horn sounds for 3 seconds and then the air horn comes in over top of it. The problem with that is when some idiot cuts you off that three seconds feels like an eternity. If the relay was powered from a key on source and connected the stock horn in power off (pin 30 and 87A) and the air horn when key was on (pin 30 and 87) it should solve all my (horn) problems.
I mounted my compressor above the drive shaft using all stock bolt locations.


And the tank on the passenger side.

Evguy1 said:

You got me thinking about a relay. I currently have a semi air horn running off my 150 PSI onboard air system and its loud! The problem is when the alarm arms it beeps and scares the hell out of my wife. Yea I know its funny the first few times. I eventually installed a 3 second delay on the air valve so the stock horn sounds for 3 seconds and then the air horn comes in over top of it. The problem with that is when some idiot cuts you off that three seconds feels like an eternity. If the relay was powered from a key on source and connected the stock horn in power off (pin 30 and 87A) and the air horn when key was on (pin 30 and 87) it should solve all my (horn) problems.
I mounted my compressor above the drive shaft using all stock bolt locations.

And the tank on the passenger side.

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At one point, I wired the horn to a toggle switch. If the switch is on, the horn works in tandem with the stock horn... If the switch is off, just the stock horn honks. At one point, I had a whole separate button for the horn but the problem with both of these is you need to fidget around a bit to get the real horn going.

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On my 08 Dakota (cummins powered) I had a button in the Tee handle of the shifter which was great but now that I have an automatic I don't have that nice tee handle anymore.
I'm going to try my relay idea and see how that goes. I could add a switch to cut power to the relay so just the stock horn worked if that's all you wanted but otherwise it would be an automatic change from stock to air when the key was on.

Evguy1 said:

You got me thinking about a relay. I currently have a semi air horn running off my 150 PSI onboard air system and its loud! The problem is when the alarm arms it beeps and scares the hell out of my wife. Yea I know its funny the first few times. I eventually installed a 3 second delay on the air valve so the stock horn sounds for 3 seconds and then the air horn comes in over top of it. The problem with that is when some idiot cuts you off that three seconds feels like an eternity. If the relay was powered from a key on source and connected the stock horn in power off (pin 30 and 87A) and the air horn when key was on (pin 30 and 87) it should solve all my (horn) problems.
I mounted my compressor above the drive shaft using all stock bolt location.

Click to expand...

I picked up the stock horn signal wire located under the underhood fuse box. When I double lock it beeps the stock horn only. But if you hit the panic FOB button, the stock horn will sound but by the second beep the air horn also starts blowing. I'm guessing the airhorn solenoid needs a longer duration of voltage to actuate.