Next Mods for the Truck

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knightjp

Senior Member
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Aug 9, 2014
Posts
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Location
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Ram Year
2014
Engine
Hemi 5.7
Firstly my thanks to @ram1500rsm & @Quick_Shifter for their advice in the area of the lift.

At the moment, my truck currently handles the Dubai dunes quite well, but needs a good off road bumper for a better approach angle and lift.

First lets talk about the lift.

Initially, I was sure that all I wanted was to give it Dirt King suspension with some better coils in the rear to get better payload and towing capability and turn it into a replica of the Ram TRX concept truck.
Ram-Rebel-TRX-Concept-DodgeForum-2.jpg
That is just a beast. Certainly looks better than the current production model IMO.

However I soon realized that such extensive mods to the body, etc., would be great if you go run the desert dunes every single weekend or every other weekend. It's great for high speed dunes bashing and stuff. But not for overlanding. To be honest, most people are able to tackle the dunes here with less. Their Land Cruisers tackle the dunes in stock form.

My kind of offroading isn't just dune bashing.. It's overlanding and expeditionary style travel and camping remotely. I'm into offroading and I do watch a lot of 4WD Action / 4WD 24-7 videos and I see they get by with lot less.

So turning my truck into a Baja style trophy truck was not a good option. That was where the AEV kit came into play. AEV test their gear with Arctic expeditions and stuff. From the reviews, the AEV kit made the truck handle like stock or better, retained as much of the payload as possible and gave it a good lift for a larger tyre combination. The only thing I didn't like about it was that I couldn't use my 17" rims.


I've been having a good look at @ram1500rsm's thread on his truck build. It's awesome.

Reading through it all, I began to think. I love off roading. Where I am, it is possible to go camping and stuff only during certain months of the year. Most of the other months, it's too hot - even in the evening.

My truck is my daily driver and spends about most of its time on the road; rather than off it. Having extreme off road suspension is good, but again as I said, if I'm not wheeling every single weekend or other weekend, it doesn't do me any good.
It makes sense to create some thing close to the 2017 Rebel trim; which has only a 1" lift over the standard height.
I need a lift that isn't too high; so I'm still able to access underground parking lots with 2.2 meter max height limits. So with all of that in mind, the ICON Stage 5 kit is the best one for me.

Now for the off road bumpers.
I have been looking at the aftermarket bumpers and they kind of look like the Ram is having the mumps. Other ones are just tubular stuff like what you would find on a Baja racer. Neither look appealing to me. The only bumper that I actually like are the ones used on the 2017 Rebel and current Warlock models. However I guess doing a bumper conversion would be pricey.
Then I was watching an old movie rerun and got some inspiration. What about the style of bumpers like these..
Mercedes-Benz-ML-Class-Cars-in-The-Lost-World-Jurassic-Park-2.jpg
I could easily get stuff like this fabricated and bolted on. (Just the bottom section. Not the bars that bolt to the fenders). I want to be able to mount a winch. Extremely useful to have one.

Currently the truck has blacked out bumpers, etc.
https://www.ramforum.com/threads/first-mods.172524/

Looking at my blacked out wheels and bumpers, another inspiration hit... I'm a Marvel fan. I always liked the look of the vehicles from the Agents of Shield series.
105shield_001311_c42.jpg Agents-of-Shield-Lexus.png
Granted its a Toyota SUV, but it made me imagine what if it was a truck? I did see an Acura once..
file_170335_2_acuraassemble3.jpg


So in short... here are the next mods that I'm planning for the truck..
  1. ICON 2.5 Suspension lift kit - Stage 5
  2. OEM style Fender Flares painted in Satin Black
  3. VICE Hidden winch mount & 12,000 lbs winch.
  4. Barricade Grille Guard
  5. Torsen style differential - 100% in the rear.. for the front, I want to have it, but not sure about that.
  6. Rock Sliders
  7. Morimoto Headlights
  8. Offroad lights behind the grill or on the grille guard.
  9. AEV snorkel.
  10. A Good Exhaust... Probably Borla.. I have heard some from the Australian company - Manta
These are the confirmed mods. The ones below, I'm still debating on..
  1. Bumper mods like the Mercedes ML cars above. I might do it at some later stage or move over to the 2017 Rebel Bumper.
  2. Headache Rack OR DeeZee Invis-A-Rack system
  3. Roof Rack. I know that if I am going to go on some long distance trips, I will need to get a roof rack to mount the awning and some light weight gear. The one thing that I don't want is to put on something that will give me issues like this..
  4. Light Bar from ECCO - For that ultimate Agents of Shield look ;). This is unlikely though; especially if I put in a roof rack.
 
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knightjp

knightjp

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2014
Posts
777
Reaction score
798
Location
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Ram Year
2014
Engine
Hemi 5.7
The TRX Concept looks Badass :waytogo:

Any current pics of yours?
First Mods Thread
Sadly this truck is no more.
Repair or Total Loss Thread

I basically got myself another Ram 1500 SLT..
I've revisited the ideas I laid out in this thread thinking what I would like to do with it.
Keep the Chrome or complete black out

Looking at the list above, I'm still going to do them - albeit a bit different.
  • ICON 2.5 Suspension lift kit - Stage 5
    I've decided to go for the AEV kit since they are now supporting 4th Gen Ram 1500s again. That was the kit that I liked from the start.
  • OEM style Fender Flares painted in Satin Black
    I might do this with gloss black to match the current truck
  • VICE Hidden winch mount & 12,000 lbs winch.
    I'm definitely doing this at some point.
  • Barricade Grille Guard
  • Torsen style differential - 100% in the rear.. for the front, I want to have it, but not sure about that.
  • Rock Sliders
  • Morimoto Headlights
    I'm on the fence with these as I like the AlphaRex ones as well, but now I sort of feel it is a bit over done and not at all unique.
  • Offroad lights behind the grill or on the grille guard.
  • AEV snorkel.
  • A Good Exhaust... Probably Borla.. I have heard some from the Australian company - Manta
    I don't need to do the exhaust any more as the current truck came with a Borla system and it sounds glorious.
The TRX Concept looks Badass :waytogo:
The TRX concept actually looks better than the current TRX model IMO. I've sort of decided that even though it looks so cool, the desert runner look is not for me. I'm all about maintaining that clean, elegant look.
 
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knightjp

knightjp

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2014
Posts
777
Reaction score
798
Location
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Ram Year
2014
Engine
Hemi 5.7
It's gonna look awesome. Can't go wrong with AEV.

Keep us posted :waytogo:
Thanks.. Will do. I plan on keeping this truck for a long time. Right now priority is installing some kind of navigation into the truck. I don't want a repeat of my last mistake.
The only thing is what kind of head unit will I be installing. I like those Android T-Style stuff.. I also would like to keep the interior as factory as possible so I could have the 2018 head unit with Apple carplay. Looking at both options, my OCD is going to run wild.

Edit: Doing some research, I think I might have found the very thing I am looking for.
https://autotecpro.com/product/dodg...a-touch-screen-android-navigation-gps-system/
The only thing that I'm not too sure about is the Hazard switch being relocated to the top.
 
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