2017 Ram 1500 Night Edition “Wanda”

That body lift looks awesome.

My history with lifted vehicles:
First vehicle at 16:
My dad gave me a stock 2003 f250 6.0 powerstroke with 200k miles, I got a job in construction to lift the truck and this was the product
- BDS 4" lift with dual fox shocks in front and new leaf springs front and rear
I sold it at 315k and have regretted it every day since I sold it...

Next: 2007 toyota 4runner V8 limited AWD
bought stock and lifted 3" with bilstien 5100 F/R and springs
ran 255/80r17 (pizza cutters) cooper st maxx
4runner was a great vehicle and I sold it at 198K miles so that I wouldn't have to drop 5-6k at a dealer for a timing belt service since the truck was only worth 7k at that mileage

We can all just forget about my economical 2017 Civic hatchback sport touring that got 40mpg... it served its purpose but man I hated not being lifted...

Finally we have Wanda. Ill be keeping wanda for as long as I can since I graduate pharmacy school in may ill be coming into the money to play with her once I land a job. Eventually (and ideally) wanda will be a weekend camping/overlanding rig and I will be DD'ing a HD diesel with carli suspension and 37s

Installed boost auto tow mirrors yesterday
I love them so far!
Options I got are
- turn signals in mirror
- cheapest option for front facing signal with a smoked cover
- low output puddle light
- heated upper and lower glass

These mirrors do not have a power fold option but that doesn't bother me a whole lot
The passenger side mirror feels like it sits low and the bottom inside corner of the covex (lower) mirror is cut off by the window sill
Fit and finish on the mirrors is great otherwise and I think that I will be very happy with them

Looks fantastic with the lift and BL! How long did it take you to do the BL?

I plan on doing a 1.5 BL as well once I get my Carli Commuter in to replace the Bilsteins.

Looks great! let us know if we can help with any of those future mods! We offer most of them.

For the bed cover, I always recommend a hard cover, whether it be folding, rolling, or retractable. Just for the security and looks. All you need to get in a soft cover is something sharp to cut it open.

fernandok said:

Looks fantastic with the lift and BL! How long did it take you to do the BL?

I plan on doing a 1.5 BL as well once I get my Carli Commuter in to replace the Bilsteins.

Click to expand...

I did 99% of the body lift in 7 hours of work and came back the next day to try to relocate the back bumper and worked at that for about an hour and a half before I gave up and decided the bumper was staying where it was.

Like was told to me, for the front of the bed you need about 2 feet of extensions for your socket unless you’re reeeeallly good at bending in odd angles

For me the hardest part was removing the big washers from the oem body bolts, it took a few minutes of banging on each bolt with a 3 pound baby sledge hammer to get the washer free

Truck is on pause for a little bit since I spent a little bit more than I intended to upgrading my desk and gaming PC.


I do need to get the wheels balanced sometime since the ride gets pretty bumpy on the interstate and im running 30 PSI in the D range tires. And I am also half-way trying to find a low speed rattle/vibration that comes from the front left of the truck between 30 and 42 mph.. at first I thought it was transmission related but Im noticing it when im coasting as well and it seems that bumpy roads initiate the rattle and it continues until I get over about 45 mph or tap the brakes. I can almost feel the rattle coming from under my left foot. Not sure if its the body mount right there or if its related to the UCAs or Shock mounting.
Everything looks tight and last I checked the body mount torque was good but I guess its possible I may have blown that bushing when I accidentally went to 100 ft-lb torque on the install because I wasnt paying attention....
Ill have time to check everything and loosen/ retorque some suspension stuff when in 2 weeks so itll wait until then I guess.

Next thing I really need to do is plug in my OBD link mx+ and use JSCAN to get the tire alert to go away and recalibrate my speedo and then find a tonneau cover so I can keep my bags in the bed and my dog has the whole backseat to himself

Got my Obdlink MX + in yesterday and bought a VIN license for JSCAN, so this morning I finally calibrated my speedo, turned off TPMS since I didnt buy new sensors when I got the tires mounted and I also turned off my seatbelt chime

Ordered a set of Powerstop Z36 front and rear rotors and pads over the weekend and installed the front on sunday when they came in. First time doing brakes on a vehicle that weighs more than 300 pounds. Drivers side went on first and I took my time watching youtube videos to double and triple check everything but went on without a hiccup.
When I moved to the passenger side I was making really good time on it until my torque wrench decided not to stop at 30 ft lbs and I broke the caliper slide bolt.... took everything back apart and drilled the bolt out and went to ACE hardware for a replacement- a 45 minute round trip from where I live. Started throwing everything back together again and the new metric 10.9 bolts that I picked up were not tightening down yet I was 100% sure they were the right size and thread when I picked them up.. Turns out my torque wrench took a dump on me for some reason and I overtorqued the new ones too. hooray now I have stripped threads inside the caliper slide nut..
Thankfully autozone had 2 sets of replacement caliper slides for the ram 1500 in stock so I went back to town for another 45 minute round trip and picked those up. Switched torque wrenches and everything went back together perfectly..

Now on to why I decided to do brakes in the first place- when I was almost home friday evening, I started hearing what I would have sworn was my rotors and pads contacting each other without me pressing the brake pedal. So after I got the new brakes on I went out for my first test drive to bed them in and didnt hear the noise anymore so I was happy knowing that replacing the brakes fixed the problem.. almost....
Later in the day I went to deliver a dryer to a friends house and about 15 minutes into the drive, the noise was back but different.. and it got worse and worse and louder and louder the longer I drove. At a U turn I was wiggling the steering wheel and noticed that was how I was able to reproduce this new noise. Got back home and started looking.

All I needed to do was add some grease to the zone UCAs ball joint on the driver side and the noise disappeared.. Cool dropped $$$ for brakes I didnt need just to learn my UCAs needed some grease. Oh well live and learn. And this was a good excuse to learn something new as well.

healthyrx said:

And I am also half-way trying to find a low speed rattle/vibration that comes from the front left of the truck between 30 and 42 mph.. at first I thought it was transmission related but Im noticing it when im coasting as well and it seems that bumpy roads initiate the rattle and it continues until I get over about 45 mph or tap the brakes. I can almost feel the rattle coming from under my left foot. Not sure if its the body mount right there or if its related to the UCAs or Shock mounting.
Everything looks tight and last I checked the body mount torque was good but I guess its possible I may have blown that bushing when I accidentally went to 100 ft-lb torque on the install because I wasnt paying attention....
Ill have time to check everything and loosen/ retorque some suspension stuff when in 2 weeks so itll wait until then I guess.

healthyrx said:

Now on to why I decided to do brakes in the first place- when I was almost home friday evening, I started hearing what I would have sworn was my rotors and pads contacting each other without me pressing the brake pedal. So after I got the new brakes on I went out for my first test drive to bed them in and didnt hear the noise anymore so I was happy knowing that replacing the brakes fixed the problem.. almost....
Later in the day I went to deliver a dryer to a friends house and about 15 minutes into the drive, the noise was back but different.. and it got worse and worse and louder and louder the longer I drove. At a U turn I was wiggling the steering wheel and noticed that was how I was able to reproduce this new noise. Got back home and started looking.

All I needed to do was add some grease to the zone UCAs ball joint on the driver side and the noise disappeared.. Cool dropped $$$ for brakes I didnt need just to learn my UCAs needed some grease. Oh well live and learn. And this was a good excuse to learn something new as well.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The same thing happened to mine. I assumed they were already greased and ready for install. Nope. had that annoying clunk for about 2 weeks before I thought to look at the UCA's. Took about 10 Pumps grease and good to go. I've found that every 3000 miles they need about 10 pumps per side. But the new Brakes look awesome!

Looks like my driver side ball joint took a dump at less than 4K miles… got some JBA UCAs on the way and I’ll throw these zone ones up for sale once I get the jba ones installed..

Had the day off today and figured since I can't drive too much with the state of my drivers side upper ball joint I might as well throw some left over sound deadening in the doors. Process was actually easier than in my past vehicles. It was scary at first taking the inner door plate off and detaching the window, but after the first door was off and I figured everything out with the help of some youtube videos it all went smoothly.
I used noico 80 mil butyl rubber and when I ran out of that I used siless 50 mill butyl rubber that I doubled up. And then over the butyl I used noico red 150 mil closed cell foam. Wasn't going for 100% coverage, just good enough since Im not planning on any audio upgrades any time soon.

Passenger rear door without anything


Driver front door finished up


And of course, Diesel had to supervise and make sure I didn't mess anything up

Just a nice pic I took after I got the tonneau cover installed


This weekend I got my Curt class IV trailer hitch installed- took longer than it needed to because someone has sprayed several coats of thick undercoating on the truck frame and it destroys any threads that it goes through when I take bolts out…. Getting to be very annoying so I had to get creative with getting the 2 oem bumper frame bolts back in since the weld nut threads got so mashed.
I ended up spraying penetrating oil in the threads and letting it sit and then using my angle grinder to cut a notch in the first 5-6 threads of the bolt on 2 sides, 180* from each other and then impacting the bolt in and back out, cleaning the bolt and nut with air and then repeating until the bolt went in nicely by hand.
Got everything torqued back to spec so I’m happy with the end result!

I’ve also got my Icon 2.5 COs on the way which im very excited about and I’ll be able to install those and my JBA UCAs hopefully soon!
Planning to set the icons to just under the max lift height and then add my RC top plate spacers to them for close to the same lift I have now.
For now I’m keeping the eibach shocks and springs in the rear, but I may go to fox at some point down the road. Not super fond of having to cut my shock brackets just to get the icon rear shocks to fit so I’m gonna pass on those I think.

Also have some amsoil XL 5w20 and lubegard biotech on the way for my next oil change.. not sure if I’m starting to hear a tick or not as it’s only been once or twice I think I may have heard it but it goes away too fast for me to verify, however my exhaust heat shields are tight so I guess it’s not the manifolds… yet..

I still have to get my sound deadening installed it the back of the cab but thats gonna have to wait a little while. Broke my thumb over the weekend and dont really want to try to wrangle the back seats out without a thumb

healthyrx said:

I’ve also got my Icon 2.5 COs on the way which im very excited about and I’ll be able to install those and my JBA UCAs hopefully soon!
Planning to set the icons to just under the max lift height and then add my RC top plate spacers to them for close to the same lift I have now.
For now I’m keeping the eibach shocks and springs in the rear, but I may go to fox at some point down the road. Not super fond of having to cut my shock brackets just to get the icon rear shocks to fit so I’m gonna pass on those I think.

Also have some amsoil XL 5w20 and lubegard biotech on the way for my next oil change.. not sure if I’m starting to hear a tick or not as it’s only been once or twice I think I may have heard it but it goes away too fast for me to verify, however my exhaust heat shields are tight so I guess it’s not the manifolds… yet..

I still have to get my sound deadening installed it the back of the cab but thats gonna have to wait a little while. Broke my thumb over the weekend and dont really want to try to wrangle the back seats out without a thumb

Click to expand...

Let me know how you like the icons vs the eibach stuff up front because I want to do bilstein 6112 to keep everything the same but I’ve heard a lot of good things about icon but not sure they’re worth the money and not have external reservoir.

crazykid1994 said:

Let me know how you like the icons vs the eibach stuff up front because I want to do bilstein 6112 to keep everything the same but I’ve heard a lot of good things about icon but not sure they’re worth the money and not have external reservoir.

Click to expand...

Ill defintitely be posting about them when I get them in and on! I went with them because I wanted the 2.5s for the big difference in damping vs fox 2.0s but I dont think I need the extra volume of a res in my use case since im 95% on road and when I get offroad its fire roads and stuff like that to get to camp sites. maybe when this truck isn't my only vehicle Ill do some more aggressive offroading but for now I just want a nice DD. I got these icons for only $300 more than fox 2.0s through nick so it was a great deal

Little bit of a teaser since my Icons came in! Friday afternoon can’t come soon enough so I can get them installed
Thank you so much @Nick@GotExhaust for the great price and speedy shipping!

What’s the length on them from the mounting plate to the middle of the eye hole

healthyrx said:

Little bit of a teaser since my Icons came in! Friday afternoon can’t come soon enough so I can get them installed
Thank you so much @Nick@GotExhaust for the great price and speedy shipping!

View attachment 487312

Click to expand...

Look at those beauties! You are going to love them!!

crazykid1994 said:

What’s the length on them from the mounting plate to the middle of the eye hole

Click to expand...

From the top of the mounting plate to the middle of the eye hole I’m getting 22 3/4”
That’s at whatever the icon setting is - I guess 2.5” lift