Carli Suspension CLSCS-DATB-14-R-KIT Extended Rear Track Bar 14-25 Dodge / Ram

The Carli Suspension Extended Rear Track Bar CS-DATB-14-R-KIT will help recenter the rear axle in your Dodge Ram 2500 4WD. Rams trucks equipped with the 5-link rear suspension provide unparalleled on and off-road ride quality in both stock and modified form. Immediately off the dealer lot, the small bump compliance and composure of the stock suspension is reminiscent of driving a 1/2-ton. That said, this suspension design does come with its share of downsides. The one shortcoming addressed with the Carli Extended Rear Track Bar is, as the name would imply, the length of the factory track bar. The suspension has 4 trailing arms to maintain the rear axle's vertical, forward, and rearward movement, while the lateral axle movement is controlled by a track bar. This track bar attaches to the axle on the driver's side and the frame on the passenger side. This opposes the front track bar that's mounted to the axle on the passenger's side and the frame on the driver's side. These opposing track bar mounts cause the chassis to twist over the axles as the suspension cycles through its travel. When the truck is suspended on a lift with the springs removed, it's easy to see how the axle shifts side to side as it travels through the suspension cycling. In the real world, the tires are planted on the ground, and their traction means the body shifts as the suspension cycles. This body movement (rotation of the truck around its vertical axis) is referred to as yaw. The straighter the axle's path through the travel stroke, the less "yaw" will be experienced. There are two ways to alleviate the lateral movement of an axle with a track bar. First, increase the length of the bar itself. The lateral movement that's felt in the cab is the actual shortening of the track bar. The track bar will pivot around its fixed mounting hardware. When the frame bolt is static, the track bar is at its longest when it's perfectly flat. It's at its shortest when at its most extreme angle. The effective length and drastic angle change through travel is what's felt as in-cab yaw. Lengthening the bar itself, spacing the pivots further away from each other, will shorten the effective length AND angle change through the same stroke of travel. With the bar as long as possible, flattening it at its center point in travel (ride-height) will provide the least amount of deviation from its longest to its shortest effective length. Most miles are spent on the highway or around town, even gentle off-roading. For this type of driving, the suspension will stay in the middle 50% of its travel. It's within this middle 50% that the side-to-side movement of the rear axle should be minimal. To accomplish this, Carli designed one of the longest bars on the market, a massive 13.8" longer than the factory bar, then raised the axle end and lowered the frame end to ensure the bar pivots were level at ride height. The result is a track bar that practically disappears into the rear. There's no noticeable rear yaw on a truck with the Carli Rear track bar. When testing the extremes of travel, you'll see the most deviation given the amount of movement in the suspension. When encountering conditions large enough to reach these travel extremes, the lateral shift was still imperceptible, and at its most, the Carli track bar saw 5/8" of shortening. The last significant metric is "Roll Center". This concept is not easily understood, but luckily, there is a ton of literature online should you want to study the concept. In short, the roll center is the center point (axis) around which your truck rolls. This roll center exists independently in the front and rear track bars. These two are connected by the roll-axis, but we're not going to get that geeky here. As we're talking about the rear specifically, that's what we'll discuss here. Ideally, the roll center will align with the center line of the truck's mass. This ensures your vehicle rolls equally to both sides. If the roll center biases to either side of the chassis centerline, the suspension will feel overloaded and tip toward the side that's over-leveraged, while the under-leveraged fights movement, resulting in imbalance and less control that worsens as loads increase. As the technician writing this, it makes perfect sense. As a prospective purchaser of this product who may not fully understand this concept, know that Carli considered the roll center when designing the rear track bar. In short, Carli addressed the transverse movement of the axle by flattening the bar through an axle-side lift and frame-side drop. This drastically increases the length of the bar equally on both sides to reduce the angle of the bar through the travel stroke while perfecting the roll-center. Construction: The DATB Track Bar is 3/8" wall DOM construction, much stronger than the brackets to which they're bolted to. This wall thickness allows the end of the bar to be threaded to accept our 1" x 7/8" FK Bearing Chromoly RSMX14T Heim Joint with a colossal 1" shank. You'll see numerous manufacturers running thinner walls and weld-in bungs with 3/4" or 7/8" shank heim joints as Carli's previous generations did. Running the thicker wall bar provides more strength and one less welded joint, which is a potential point of failure, and the larger shank for exponentially more shear strength. In place of a standard Jam-Nut, Carli developed a tapered Jam-Nut (mating surface similar to a lug nut) and a matching machined taper into the end of the track bar. This ensures perfect centering of the joint while providing 100% more friction surface area than a regular Jam-Nut. More surface area equals more clamping force and a more reliable assembly. The frame end of the track bar boasts Carli's "CUB" joint with a proven PTFE-Lined FK Bearing 7/8" Uniball at its center. Custom molded bushings are pressed on to surround this Uniball, then the assembly is pressed into the massive, gusseted frame-end housing of the track bar with a Stainless safety washer and retained with a snap ring. Custom Misalignment spacers (not pictured) center the joint in the frame bracket and ensure full fore and aft movement of the track bar is possible without binding or excessive bushing deflection.

Features:

Ideal Roll Center3/8" Wall DOM Construction13.8" Longer Than the Factory Rear Track BarEliminates Rear "Yaw" (Lateral Wag Of Rear End)NVH Isolated PTFE FK Bearings Maximize Service Life