Review of the Ram Rebel performance during the road trip and off-road excursion over Ophir Pass.
As mentioned previously, I took the Rebel on a small ~700 mile road trip from my home in north Albuquerque, NM to Ouray, CO which also included an ~80 mile side excursion trip to Telluride, CO and looping back to Ouray over Ophir Pass.
Trip Details:
It is only a 3 hour drive from my front door to Durango, CO which is the entry point into the San Juan Mountain Range and better known as the "Little Switzerland of America". But going from Durango to Ouray is at least a couple more hours of driving due to the slow, twisting, and at times even scary (but extremely scenic) mountainous route but every minute is worth it!
Starting Elevation (Albuquerque, NM) @ 5100 ft. above sea level
Destination Elevation (Ouray, CO) @ 7760 ft.
Intermediary Destinations;
(Durango, CO) @ 6512 ft.
(Silverton, CO) @ 9320 ft.
(Telluride, CO) @ 8750 ft.
Highest Traversed Elevation (Ophir Pass) @ 11,789 ft.
Season and Weather; typical early summer weather in northern NM and southern CO with temperatures ranging in the low 90s in NM to mid-60s and 70s in southern CO mountain valleys with scattering of light showers. Skies hazy due to recent forest fires in southern CO combined with overcast days.
Photo courtesy of Google
Overview:
In order to give a review on the Ram Rebel’s performance, I will attempt to give my impressions on the Ram Rebel’s factory performance and my build modifications’ performance individually.
On-Road Performance
Ram Rebel:
Comfort – very comfortable ride overall with great support from the seats (never tiring). Very quiet inside with the Harman-Kardon providing great sound quality with the Sirius radio. The climate controls and other systems worked perfectly. Wife was very comfortable in the passenger’s heated/cooled seats and had plenty of storage for our luggage, camera gear, and my usual assortment of recovery and emergency gear in rear seat.
On-Road Performance – no issues at all as the Ram had plenty of passing power even when going up steep mountain grades at altitude. The transmission was always in the right gear and never seemed to spend much time hunting. My only real complaint is that manually changing gears (i.e., holding a gear during downgrades) is not really easy or fun with the placement of the manual shift buttons on the steering wheel (especially if the wheel is turned) as with my Tundra and Ford center console shifters with manual gates. Other than that, the Ram was a pleasure to drive.
Gas Mileage – averaged 14.5 mpg going 75-85 mph during the mostly uphill highway ride during the beginning of the trip, 7-8 mpg during the off-road excursion at exceptionally high altitude in 4-high or 4-low, 9-10 mpg on twisty paved road mountain switchbacks, and averaging 15.5 mpg going 75-85 mph on mostly downhill highway ride during the return trip. Overall averaged trip mileage @ 14.4 mpg. Compared to my built 2015 Tundra which usually averaged ~12 mpg on same exact trip (including some off-roading), this was a nice improvement along with the extra benefit that the Ram was more comfortable than the Tundra over longer distances.
Build Modifications - okay, here is the thing that folks really want to know when you lift your vehicle:
Comfort – amazing, per above. The Fabtech 3-inch Dirt Logic suspension provided an extremely comfortable and stable ride. I don’t think the ride quality was quite as smooth as the Falcon suspension I had on previously (especially over smaller road imperfections) but it was pretty darn close. The Dirt Logic shocks are a tad stiffer as expected given the larger coil-over spring rates and shocks but the system just soaked up dips and rises perfectly. The really amazing impression though were the new Yokohama Geolander MT G003 tires; these very aggressive looking off-road tires rode smooth as butter at high speeds and never wandered! They were exceptionally quiet at speed given the much larger size and tread design. While there is some increased road noise, they were not intrusive at all. Amazing! I also feel that the extra weight of the topper over the rear axle also helped smooth out the ride and added to the overall driving impressions (below).
On-Road Performance – Turn-in feel always felt great although just a tad slower than the factory setup (due to the tires’ extra mass and width providing more road contact patch) but higher speed turns always felt secure with minimal body lean (hardly noticeable since I also increased the track width with the new wheels and tires). The Dirt Logic valve tuning was excellent for on-road performance and comfort as stated above. The Yokohama Geolanders provided excellent on-road grip in both dry and wet (during mountain showers) conditions. The tire temperatures never increased passed their normal settings even after long high speed sections. The Fabtech Dirt Logic setup reminds me very much of the King OEM Performance Series Suspension I ran on my Tundra which is a very good thing!
Gas Mileage – see above. I was very happy considering the extra weight of the aftermarket wheels and much larger tires, bed topper, all the gear we stuffed into the truck, and the fact that I totally changed the vehicle’s aerodynamic profile by lifting the vehicle (although not by a huge amount compared to other lift options). Also, my highway mileage was taken at speeds ranging from 75-85 mph (maybe slightly higher at times but will deny that in Court) so I am pretty confident I would have netted much better results on flatter, slightly slower highway drives despite my build modifications.
Off-Road Performance
I need to qualify this particular off-road excursion. Ophir Pass is nestled in the San Juan mountains with a summit at 11,789 ft. The trail rated is as a “moderately difficult” trail and that is mostly limited to the ledge carved out of the steep side slope that originally served as a toll road between Silverton and Telluride during late 1800s. But it can be quite nerve-wracking as the side slope and trail is comprised of very loose, fragmented rock that slides easily and can be quite slippery especially when wet. For an off-road excursion though, it is not very technical and there are no big boulders to worry about other than some rock fall from above. The biggest boulder I encountered was maybe 2 ft. in diameter but there was no rock crawling to the degree you may find on other trails in the area. But the trail is just rough enough to be fun and you can find side trails that are bit more challenging although I purposely avoided anything too strenuous due to the fact that this was my wife’s first experience on a side slope like this and her toes were curled during the entire crossing…lol. But I did find a couple of small rock hills that require some low-range wheeling so had a little fun testing out the suspension.
Photo courtesy of Google
Ram Rebel:
Overall, the Rebel did just fine with plenty of low end grunt to muscle over the rocks and out of the ruts on the side trails. Wet wheeling was limited to very small stream runoff so no real issue there. However, this truck does make a lot of noise when under stress. There is some rattling underneath that I need to have checked out but the more disturbing sounds come from the engine fans and hill descent control system. I never had an off-road biased vehicle make so much noise before so this was disconcerting at first although I finally got used to it. But the wife was comfortable and felt secure inside the Ram (especially once we left the ledge sections).
Build Modifications:
In short, the Fabtech setup did just fine too providing plenty of clearance and wheel articulation to tackle the ruts and larger rocks on some of the side trails with no detectable complaints from the heavy duty UCA/ball joints or Dirt Logic shocks. Slow speed crawling seemed pretty smooth. While going faster on dirt roads, the system was notably stiffer over washboards but always controlled even without airing down the tires (so my initial impression is that the Dirt Logic shock valving is linear). The Yokohama Geolanders provided plenty of confidence too as they just crushed (literally) the rock sections and provided excellent grip going uphill over the loose rock. I did not find any chunking of the tire tread afterwards given the amount of hard, rough cut rock we wheeled over. Overall, I am pretty happy with the Fabtech Dirt Logic system and Yokohama tire combo as it made the truck ride comfortably over the rough stuff while giving me the performance I expected for moderate wheeling. I am anxious to try it out on some higher speed desert/dune runs as that will allow me to make a more accurate comparison against my other builds with King, Icon, Fox setups.
Edits: photo add and spelling corrections
