Your truck's suspension does an adequate job of maintaining control during most driving situations, but if you push your truck hard on a daily basis or if you enjoy turns and you don't like slowing down for them, you need to read this story closely. When your truck begins to turn, the cab wants to "roll" over because it is transferring all of the weight to the outside wheels. The result of this excessive body roll is the front end "plowing", which we call understeer. Basically, your truck does not want to turn, it wants to keep going straight and oftentimes, in these situations, you lose control. This can especially be dangerous when hauling a heavy load, towing, or when you find yourself trying to enjoy an empty road with twists and turns. With a truck having a higher center of gravity (listen up lifted truck owners), larger and stronger antisway bars are the key to maintaining control during all driving conditions.
| 2009 Dodge Ram Upgrades slalom Test
Even with our bolt-on air suspension from Ride Tech on our '09 Ram, we found the 26-inch-wheel-equipped Dodge to be a real handful when turning at speeds. This was made obvious by our extensive testing, where we made several passes through our 600-foot slalom course. Seeing the '09 Ram's cab rolling around like a container ship, we knew what had to be done-we needed new antisway bars. A quick call to ADDCO had a new front and rear sway bar shipped to us in no time. Made of high-carbon steel, each bar is hardened and stress-relieved for superior strength and stiffness. Optional urethane bushings, heat-treated 5,000-pound tensile end-link bolts, and heavy-duty, plated washers ensure the bars remain rigid and keep the truck planted. ADDCO may not be the first name that comes to mind for sway bars, but you may be surprised to learn that they private label for many companies and for 39 years, they've been making suspension components to make your truck safer. Check out the story to see just how big of a difference the new ADDCO bars made on our project Ram.
| 2009 Dodge Ram Upgrades left Side Angle
FROM THE DRIVER SEAT
As you can see by the before and after photos, the Ram is much more stable when making high-speed turns. Body roll was minimized and we feel like our 26-inch MHT wheels and Nitto 305/30R26 NT420S tires are working much more efficiently as they're planted throughout the corners. What surprised us the most was how burly the solid front 1 1/2-inch bar was-it was basically a sewer pipe bolted to the front end and did a great job of handling the Ram's heftiness. Before we could feel elated, we had to feel disappointment. Both the front and rear bushing mount bolt holes were way off and required extensive drilling, with the front requiring a drill press. Being that we were at the track doing the install, this set us back over an hour.
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Time Spent Working: 2 hours
Degree Of Difficulty: Intermediate
(Only because we had to drill out the bushing bolt holes)
Tools Needed:
15mm socket/wrench, 17mm socket/wrench, -inch wrench, floor jack, jackstands
Parts Used:
ADDCO front sway bar 2256
$200.38
ADDCO rear sway bar 2427
$TBD
Total: $200.38
(Price from summitracing.com does not include new rear sway bar price, tax, shipping, or installation)
