TommyG
Adventurer
Yup. Very common. Nice rig by the way. Enjoying watching it come together.
2021 Ram 2500 Power Wagon (Gigantor 2.0)
- Thread starter bikelanta
- Start date
Yup. Very common. Nice rig by the way. Enjoying watching it come together.
It lives! Finally figured out the wiring issue. There is one wire that connects to the ignition and the switch doesn’t work without power coming from it
View attachment trim.FAAF780D-EE75-4D29-9B2B-2B95C58276CA.MOV
It’s definitely a bit of a wiring mess at the moment, but just psyched to have mobile air now.
View attachment trim.FAAF780D-EE75-4D29-9B2B-2B95C58276CA.MOV
It’s definitely a bit of a wiring mess at the moment, but just psyched to have mobile air now.
Got a few things done in the last week, including the following:
Installed the Air Lift airbags and Daystar cradles, though as you can see from the photos, I'm not especially proud of how they're lined up. There's no template included, so you have to figure out the alignment on your own for the cradles...unless of course I missed a memo somewhere and someone can let me know that I'm a moron. They require drilling into the bump stop pad attached to the axle. The first time around, the alignment was terrible, even though I marked where it should be after jacking the axle up against the pads. I installed the Schrader valves in the cover where the plug for the trailer camera goes, which I didn't purchase. It seemed like a great spot, but the cover is a little loose now. I think in the future, I might improve the installation and go down to one valve with a Union T fitting.
Purchased and installed some Husky floor mats as well.
Installed the Air Lift airbags and Daystar cradles, though as you can see from the photos, I'm not especially proud of how they're lined up. There's no template included, so you have to figure out the alignment on your own for the cradles...unless of course I missed a memo somewhere and someone can let me know that I'm a moron. They require drilling into the bump stop pad attached to the axle. The first time around, the alignment was terrible, even though I marked where it should be after jacking the axle up against the pads. I installed the Schrader valves in the cover where the plug for the trailer camera goes, which I didn't purchase. It seemed like a great spot, but the cover is a little loose now. I think in the future, I might improve the installation and go down to one valve with a Union T fitting.
Purchased and installed some Husky floor mats as well.
I installed the same setup about two weeks ago, and I agree it was a bit of a pain. On the passenger side I ended up removing the cradle and moving it inboard about 1/2" to get it to line up better. The axle does move laterally as mentioned and that can cause some headaches when installing. But even with them not perfectly aligned, the bags are able to flex in all directions to maintain contact. After towing a few times with bags I can say they are definitely a must have for a Power Wagon that is used for regular towing. I thought about running a tee fitting and plumbing them together, I even bought the fitting and some extra air line, but in the end I kept them segregated. After some reading several people with air bags recommend keeping them separate to prevent air from passing between the bags. Granted they had extremely heavy loads they were dealing with, such as salt spreaders or large hard sided campers.
I do like how you mounted the Schrader valves, mine are on each side of the truck just forward of the wheel wells, there are a few factory holes there that are the perfect size and avoided drilling. My next step with the air bag setup is installing on board air in the truck. I am still undecided on which route I will end up going, AirLift makes a small manifold/controller for their setup that is appealing but I am not sure I want to spend $550 to just inflate and deflate the bags.
@RCP Thanks for your commentary. Appreciate that you went through the same hassles on the cradles.
That's a good point. I have the tee fitting also, but I think I'll keep them separated.
That does seem like a convenience that would be nice to have. For me, trailers will be an occasional thing that we rent from Outdoorsy. We have a trip planned later this year, which is why I installed the air bags in the first place.
Thanks @ramblinChet. Looking forward to seeing how your truck emerges from AEV's factory.
aaaslayer
Active member
You sound like you work for AEV and got slightly offended. As someone who owned an AEV lift and then switched to a Thuren Suspension setup, I'll say, I will never again use an AEV suspension component. Thuren is a night and day difference to AEV. My last truck was fully Thuren Suspension, my new Power Wagon will be fully Thuren Suspension again real soon. Parts are on order already. Thuren or bust!
Hi @aaaslayer, thanks for chiming in. Congrats on the '21 PW. For my education and learning, can you describe the shortcomings or issues you had with the AEV suspension? What improvements did you see with the Thuren? Do you have any expectations for how the suspension will be different on a Power Wagon vs. a standard long bed 2500 Cummins? What do you want to be different vs. the stock PW suspension?
Side note, we have a national park trip planned for later this year. I'm thinking through our power needs (short term, not long term) for that trip. I started a discussion thread over in the Power Systems forum. I figure it will get more specific attention to the need I have. That being said, if any of you have thoughts, please feel free to chime in over there: link to discussion.
aaaslayer
Active member
AEV was a lift, Thuren is a suspension upgrade, if that makes sense.AEV is a spacer lift, they can talk all day about the engineering behind it to try and sell you on their product, it's all marketing. I'm sure there is engineering behind it, but at the end of the day, it is a spacer lift and retains mostly OEM parts. If I'm spending that much money, I want to replace the OEM parts with better engineered parts that can outperform my OEM parts. Thuren springs are softer, way more travel, you lose a bit of payload, but then again a Power Wagon does not have a lot of payload to begin with and it is a purpose built truck, for offroading, if you want to tow heavy then go with the Cummins. The PW can tow, but that's not what it was designed to do. Thuren shocks have great travel and comfort, they jus ride good, better than OEM or any bilstein shock AEV gives you. You get a replacement track bar that is beefier, rather than having a bracket to relocate it like with AEV. I got a much nicer riding sway bar as well instead of keeping the rough OEM one. All in all, I felt I got my money's worth with Thuren. With AEV I felt robbed after paying that much for spacers and brackets to relocate stuff rather than replace it.
I didn't have shortcomings or issues with AEV, it just was not worth it to me for that kind of money. You can achieve way better flex and ride quality going with Thuren or Carli for the same money. I can't compare my PW to my Cummins with both Thuren suspension as I don't have the Thuren parts yet, I ordered last week. But I am very confident it will ride just as good as it did in my Cummins.
UglyViking
Well-known member
I'd add one more thing, why bother lifting the rear end up if your plan is to run 37s as the largest height tire? These 5th gens can run 37s from factory with the correct offset wheels with super minor trimming. I don't see what value you get from jacking the truck up 3" up front, 2" in the rear, and keeping the factory travel and rough ride, especially if it's all to run 37s.
You can clear 37s to the bump stops, so you'll never have an issue, I mean I've seen guys run 39s with only minor trimming. If you only want it for the look you may as well go with a standard spacer lift so long as you keep it relatively short since it's going to ride almost identical to the AEV kit.
Another thing, I'm having a hard time pulling up the data but I recall AEV claiming somewhere that there were like 40 springs for these RAMs and they didn't want to mess with that. It may be true but from my quick research RAM has part numbers for the left/right spring on every truck, so that takes the number down to 20, from there they also have different springs for the power wagon, HEMI and Cummins front springs, not to mention the rear PW springs. Then you have different springs for the 3500 front vs 2500 front. So in the end you're talking prob somewhere around half a dozen spring options and considering that the OEM plans for things like snow plow prep and camper prep and such I don't really think it's worth what you're losing out on.
You can clear 37s to the bump stops, so you'll never have an issue, I mean I've seen guys run 39s with only minor trimming. If you only want it for the look you may as well go with a standard spacer lift so long as you keep it relatively short since it's going to ride almost identical to the AEV kit.
Another thing, I'm having a hard time pulling up the data but I recall AEV claiming somewhere that there were like 40 springs for these RAMs and they didn't want to mess with that. It may be true but from my quick research RAM has part numbers for the left/right spring on every truck, so that takes the number down to 20, from there they also have different springs for the power wagon, HEMI and Cummins front springs, not to mention the rear PW springs. Then you have different springs for the 3500 front vs 2500 front. So in the end you're talking prob somewhere around half a dozen spring options and considering that the OEM plans for things like snow plow prep and camper prep and such I don't really think it's worth what you're losing out on.
aaaslayer
Active member
I went with 1.5" springs up front and stock height springs in the rear, no lift in the rear, just softer rate coils for more flex. I don't tow in the PW and don't plan on it. Most I'll have back there is my pop top tent that is in the works from OVLRND Campers, and a simple build out back there. So all in all about 300 lbs for the pop top and another 100 lbs in some simple drawer storage I'll build using lightweight materials. No need for rear lift springs or stiff springs. If I feel there's more sag than I'm comfortable with, I'll get bags and daystar cradles. I too will be doing 37s, already have them running Nitto Mud graps in 37x13.5R17 and just waiting on the suspension to arrive and install and then order my wheels. I'll be going with AEV Salta wheels, so you see, I don't entirely dislike AEV product, just not down with their suspension parts for my truck but the wheels are nice lol
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So, a few updates, though mostly I've just been using the truck.
Truck Mod Related
Truck Mod Related
- Can't wait to get the Super Pacific. The Softopper is adequate for protecting things from the weather, but it's basically a pain having to constantly snap and unsnap the sides and the rear when you need to get to something.
- I go back and forth on whether I like the Decked drawers. I haven't found an arrangement of stuff to keep stored in it constantly and how to keep it organized. The boxes it comes with are nice, but they kind of waste space relative to just dropping things in there, but then I'm regularly moving stuff around to find other things. Plus, the system just takes up so much space that it can't actually carry as much as an empty bed. We'll see.
- I did relocate the ARB compressor to under the hood and that has been a great change. It beats pulling out the portable box that it was in, clamping it to the battery and then putting it all away. I see now why that is a frequently used location. Now I just pop the hood, attach the air hose, and go to work.
- Traveled to Yellowstone and Grand Teton in mid-August. Truck handled the weight of a 4,000 pound travel trail well, after I made sure to add air to both the tires and airbags. I typically have been driving with the tires at 40 psi, but they were better up around 55 when towing and with the weight of gear and four passengers. MPGs were as abysmal as expected for the Hemi while towing (8.5-9.5), then again we're talking Colorado and Wyoming, so it wasn't flat driving. We were even rerouted off I-80 on the return trip due to extremely high winds. In the process, we made our way through Medicine Bow National Forest, which is gorgeous, but we hadn't planned on ascending 4,000 feet and over an 11,000 foot pass for that trip. Then again...Colorado and Wyoming.
- Went out exploring part of the Switzerland Trail in early September. A few spots were tight and I appreciated the 360 cameras to get an idea of how close to the edge I was. Passed a number of other vehicles going the opposite direction too, but thankfully those encounters occurred with enough space.
- Spent last week in and around Crested Butte, which I found to be the most beautiful part of Colorado I've seen so far. Doesn't hurt that the aspens were on fire! Took the truck out to explore the area there and get it dirty. It rained on and off during the week, so there were a few spots I was thinking of exploring, but didn't find it prudent to go solo. A few photos from that exploration below.
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Explorerinil
Observer
Awesome pics! I don’t think your mpg is bad at all given all those factors.
jadmt
ignore button user
I did the same and decided against. My buddy had them in his PW with RSI topper and they really squeeze the head space. The other draw back is they are pretty heavy I think around 200lbs. The drawers are not square so the taper hinders certain things like his blackstone grill would not fit due to the shape of the drawers. They would not have worked with my GFC as they took up too much space. They are well built tho and I can see for some applications they would be nice just not for me.