2017 Dodge RAM 1500 Night Edition vs Ford F-150

Okay, here we are inside the RAM 1500 now this is the 4x 2 sport edition which means it's about the mid-range as far as pricing and features. It does not have four-wheel drive though, unlike the ford which we drove earlier. Now the change in interior cabins is rather dramatic, the design ideology between both is extremely different. Is one better than the other? well in this case I would say yes. The dodge does have some cheap plastics and it also kind of is like jellyfish inspired curves.

I just find a little bit, too bulbous for me. Personal preference th

ough. Let's go ahead and power it on because it's getting hot in the desert here. [grunts] let's let's hear that again. I'm sorry was I saying something about the ford versus the ... Yeah I don't even know what I was talking about.

2017 Dodge RAM

I'll tell you what I want to do though. Traction control off. Drive on. Ohhh! That sound! Does it have a hemi? yeah it's got a hemi. Now the looks between the f- 150 and the dodge ram are of course totally subjective. Personally I rather like the streamlined hood of the dodge, especially on this model with the blacked-out grille. I think it looks pretty tight. The F- 150 is looking pretty common these days. Although ford looks to fix that in 2018 with a new exterior redesign, but for now this one wins in the looks department.

Now the model we're driving today does have the hemi V 8 and it is a powerful motor: 395 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque. And that sound all wanting to release under the hood -- it is epic. I don't care what you think about the F- 150... It doesn't make that sound. So yeahgood job RAM. You can also get this truck with a really cool turbo diesel, that is not yet an option in the f- 150 so kudos to RAM for giving not just equal to the f- 150 but actually going above and beyond in certain key areas. Though you can get this truck with either a 6-speed or 8-speed automatic the one we're driving is the 8-speed and it's just fin. It's an automatic transmission and it does what you want when you want which is kind of the whole point of an automatic.

Does it have cool tiptronic shifting and all that stuff? nono it doesn't. But it will let you tow up to ten thousand five hundred pounds as equipped that is what's impressive. Now when I think of the RAM 1500 for some reason I always think of it as a small midsize pickup, but in fact this is a full-size truck. It's the same size basically as the ford f- 150. Now unfortunately the truck we have today does not have all-wheel drive it just has two wheel drive, but you know what? that's never stopped me from going offroad.

Dodge (RAM) does make the rebel and the rebel is their equivalent of the ford raptor. That's the one that's designed for taking jumps and basically being a serious off-road bro. So let's go ahead and take this up into the mountains anyway, because why not it's a truck, I'm sure he'll be fine. So now is the time to reach a decision.

Do we go with the ford f- 150 which cost about fifty two thousand dollars or this the RAM which is about forty seven thousand but doesn't have all-wheel drive. Best-selling truck in america since the dawn of time. Up-and-comer. Boxy. Streamlined. Hood snouts. Really big headlights.

Ford F-150

You know the decision is really difficult. But at least there is one important thing that you have to consider when you are shopping for a truck -- there are unique differences when it comes down to very specific options. You want a turbo diesel? you've got to get the RAM. You can't get that with the F- 150. Ford they have apple car play.

Dodge (RAM) does not. Although the system built in the car is really goodno car play. Sorry, I like car play. So personally, which one would I go with? oh it's hard! I love the exhaust sound of the RAM 1500it is just every single time I hit the throttle I'm like yes! The f- 150... Nobody's going to make a mistake buying an f- 150 it's a great truck. They thought of everything. So I can't string you along for two episodes and not come up with a decision. So I will now make a decision. Ford f- 150... RAM 1500... I can't make up my mind!

Ford F354 Monster Truck

This week we're putting the biggest off-road tires you can get on this old ford and taking it to the home of America's toughest rocks we're going to do it all in three days this is Crewford.

Crewford is a 93 ford f-350 that I bought off of a government surplus auction site online I was going to build it into a magazine project truck I did a few upgrades to it i put 37-inch tires on without any lift so we just kind of trim the bumpers I took it to Shaffer off-road we put 410 gears and detroit lockers rear and that was kind of it I just built this big cool truck that i could take off road but after a while I was just kind of over it I didn't really have anything else I wanted to do to it and I put it up for sale and nobody would buy it part of the problem is it's a crew cab long bed one-ton truck but it only has a small block Ford engine under the hood I was trying to figure out how I'm going to sell the thing when dirt head Dave saw it and he was like you got to keep that truck that truck is so cool I thought about what he said it was like you know what maybe we can build this thing that we can do something cool with it so I called him i told come on up we're gonna build the Ford I got one condition it's gonna be a monster truck huge tires these are mickey thompson baja quality ttc 54 inch tall tires these are like the tallest off-road tires you can get and we're going to put them on this truck in three days two and a half days two and a half days piece of cake we are mounting the tires on these I think they're 20 by tens or 12 wheels.

We're just put them on by hand this one is kind of being a bear come on Dave what are you doing give it some weight there this is what we're going to do to the Ford we have these 54 inch tires so somehow we have to fit these tires onto the truck we're probably going to need a suspension of some sort in addition to that this tire is very big the truck only has a small block so it's going to need more gearing the truck only has 4 10 gears in the axles now so we're going to add a 203 to 205 doubler some from off road design they make this product so that you can put a lower low range in the truck and then finally steering steering is going to be an issue turning that big of a tire we're going to convert the whole truck to a PSC full hydraulic steering system this should allow us to steer the truck have enough gearing to turn the tires and have enough suspension to clear the tires most of the time and you run a 54 inch tire you want to upgrade axles you want to go to like a two-and-a-half ton axle we don't have time to do that and hopefully the one ton axles will be strong enough for what we're going to do with the truck maybe down the road will upgrade to a bigger beefier axles but for now won tons 54 hydro steering lower gearing four suspension that's about it that's all I saw.

Driving Ford F354 Monster Truck

We can do it in two and a half days how's the tires coming Dave they're working all right this is the transfer case think all the bolts are out ok here goes nothing thing doesn't want to come off see some action hope you're gonna break the output shaft of the transmission some how suck it transfer case all right this is the board warner transfer case so we took out of the ford this area up here is the reduction box inside here is a giant chain the transmission attaches here and turns this which then turns the output shaft when you engage four-wheel drive it turns the front which runs through your front axle so this is what makes the vehicle four wheel drive this is not a bad transfer case it's actually pretty good however it probably only has about a 2 7 2 to one low range what we're going to replace it with is this 203 205 doubler this has the reduction box of a 203 transfer case an adapter plate from off road design and then it the venerable 205 this is one of the strongest transfer cases that something has been around for ages it's going to have a two-to-one low range here another 2 to 1 low range here which will give us a four-to-one low range is almost double what it has now you need all that low-range gearing to turn those giant tires because we don't have very low axel gears basically we're going to put this in get all of our low range in this keep our four tens which are really strong and we may have to get a new drive shafts made to run from this transfer case the current axles a dana 60 up front and a sterling ten and a half in the rear ten and half 10 yes I think 10 and 3 quarter 10.275 ten and a third don't worry about do you think.

You can roll it in here without it fallen off boy sideways holy cow about three-quarters of an inch 54 inch tire has a radius of 27 inches which is half of 54 this would be the very center of the 54 inch tire so if you look at this that tire at ride height needs at least cool like an inch cut right here in about 3 inches cut out there and out there we have a line Dave laid out a perfect arc here i'm going to just come in here with the plasma torch I'm going to cut it as close to that as I possibly can and then probably have to come in and clean it up a little bit of a grinder monster truck monster truck it looks gorgeous all right we have a new skyjacker six inch front lift springs on all brand new u-bolts we're going to put the shocks on and this will give us enough lift on the front end that hopefully we won't have to cut into the firewall and won't be the tires and be crashing and everything they look way bigger on the front than the back that's turns one I thought so the issue we're running into is right here tires going to hit right there if it turns it all and it barely turns and up front there's a bracket that hangs off the side of the frame here with a tow hook on it is really handy but that's going to have to move because that hits right there too at the end of day one we have a day and a half left approximately the front suspensions in the rear tires are on everything is cut we really need to trim some on the front so the tires can steer we started taking apart the old steering.

We're going to put the full hydro kit on the transfer case in it we got it like a 700-pound transfer case in there approx going to get the drive shaft ordered first thing in the morning get them built really quick by JE Real and overnighted so they're back here by Friday morning but we're right on schedule kicking butt real little ahead of schedule approx but we'll probably fail at something yeah something tomorrow we'll just go backwards will be plasma cutting the car burned up to the ground be done yay that's a wrap it didn't finish itself still big we're gonna start diving into this Dave is going to trim the firewall we're going to remove these tow hooks off the front we also have to address all the steering we have a full hydro kit that i want to install because it'll make it steer a lot better than the factory stuff which was already pretty tired so we're going to pull the pump off put all the new pump and ram and all that stuff on and try and make room for these giant 54s it's kind of silly that we have to stand on a stepladder just to work on the power steering pump on this car oh yeah bigger hammer truck is like a crossfit gym flip tires swing hammer good so even after beating on it with a sledgehammer I still needed to cut some more so I'll sand it up and we'll call this done what we have here is a ford dually hub and said it's basically like a big wheel spacer that built into the hub they were putting the dually hub on because it's basically a safer way to space the wheel out all right Dave bring it on in here lift touching the ground there this thing's going to turn like a dream look at that we almost get lock we will be able to back the boat up at the lake with this thing.

No problem it's all right I think I hurt my knee we're this close to being finished this we're that far from being being finished the list is getting longer ok that's it see you next time or tomorrow morning bye moring Fred I got your coffee thats Dave alright final day of the build if we don't get this thing done today we're never going to make it out off-roading what we have left to do Dave we got to do the drive shaft to get all alright we're gonna have all that stuff done by lunch time we'll be out of here doing burnouts or probably breaking axle shafts we're definitely not doing burnouts what's up little dog still runs not for sale JE Real got us three new drive shaft overnight we actually need three driveshafts because the rear driveshaft is a two piece driveshaft this part will attach to the 205 then there's a carrier bearing that attaches to the frame right here and then another drive shaft runs down to the rear end these guys we set the measurements they build them overnighted them it wasn't inexpensive but they're going to fit perfect look at that perfect how you doing all right Dave.

I think this is the moment of truth there's no turning back now we're going to see if it will actually move under its own power its got breaks ready put it in drive put it in reverse perfect i'm assuming when you were in drive I was in reverse yeah you were backwards on that one so we got to hook up the shifters button up a few little things first thing tomorrow we take it for a test drive it works Dave but we're all out of coffee so we're going to take it on our first test drive to town hopefully we don't run anything over and then we're gonna go to the desert go four-wheeling this thing's choice its like a limousine check engine lights on i think what you might have disconnected one of the wires where we're going we don't need check engine lights you think monster truck guys are going to be insulted that we're calling this a monster truck yeah what do you call it it's not a miniature truck to all you grave digger and Bigfoot fans we know this is not a real monster truck just a big truck with big tires but to all your little kids that see us driving around town yes this is a monster truck so what do you think Fred well we build a monster truck in three days.

It drives like a tractor cause it's got full hydro steering and i'm pretty sure the tires aren't balanced but other than that it's perfect hold this get out of here geeze I can barely get in this thing all these signs everywhere it's like construction zone whoa what was that I don't know let's get out of here this place is dead anyways I know it so much nicer out in the desert dude finally made it seventeen hours on the road Johnson Valley love this place is like a baddest rock crawling in America good thing we brought our mud truck good thing we brought a giant rock crawling four crew cab long bed with no winch toughest rock crawling trails in America right here and that's why i don't think we should start on the rocks we're going to play in the sand these baja claws are designed for Baja there's lots of sand in Baja plus we really don't wanna get the rocks just yet because we just got here and the last thing we want to do is break our brand new monster truck on the very first obstacle will break it in the sand that way we don't make it to the rocks all right let's go play come on come on monster Ford climb thats weird it porpoises like a dolphin it's more like a blue whale I think with jumpin it did we jumpin it I think we aired it out think we had like four and a half to 12 feet underneath the front tires lets go eat a sandwich and celebrate our dune climbing ability with our monster truck one of the reasons i wasn't able to sell this truck is because of the crew cab long bed with a small-block Ford small block.

Ford just doesn't really have enough power to push that much truck around when you add 54 inch tires and you go play in the dunes it definitely doesn't have enough power to push it around we could do a little bit more gearing in the axles beef up the transmission and definitely get more power out of the engine and then I think would be perfect on in the dunes all right Dave what's the name of this trail turkey claw why's it called that I don't know because the claws of the turkey come out of the ground and rip your vehicle apart well hows it rated on the rock crawling of Johnson Valley it's pretty hard they look Matt is behind us tell them about Matt Matt's got probably one of the coolest full-size chevys around it's got four link and coilovers and forties and tons dual transfer cases this truck is built he's wheeled with us a bunch of times and the thing proves itself he lives close by so he knows these trails so we brought the wrong truck but we brought the right support truck big tires due make the rock seem small I can't see it over this huge hood it's not a terrible rock crawler not yet here's a good stuff there you go there you go there you go that's so cool this whole truck is twisting the cab and the bed and the frame and the axles this is awesome this is why we go rock crawling this thing is actually working pretty good there you go nice and easy the truck doesn't have enough power or gearing really to climb four rocks at once so it's kind of like hitting it and it's going and that's it now it's boiling over so we're stacking a little bit to make it.

It's a one Rock wonder hit yeah it's kinda get the articulation ramp not get at the actual wheeling this is not the truck that you would probably build to come out here but it's working amazingly well you have that big of a radius of a tire it kind of rolls over stuff the transmission or the gearing somewhere between the transmission transfer cases a little upset it doesn't always want to climb hopefully we don't burn up the transmission down this gully and have to have Matt drag us out good work yeah so when you don't have a winch and you don't have low gearing you better have four buddies that like to throw rocks no matter how big the tires that's right no matter how little bit yeah largest off-road tire still not as big as the biggest rocks and Johnson valley good work Fred thanks guys we're almost out of the clutches of the turkey claw lets go how's it look Dave looks really good Fred I was spot on the other side I think somebody pushed the grocery cart into my truck while we were in Turkey claw we take this thing out.

I thought it was gonna I thought we were going to break all sorts of parts the thing probably didn't brake parts because it didn't have enough horsepower it worked really well on the rocks so like if we came back with probably some chromoly axle shafts and lower gearing this thing would actually work pretty well out here on all man that thing was awesome went through this together in three days concord a trail that I've been stuck on before in my own vehicles to get up here in this track and have it work that was a success in my book we did conquer turkey claw buddy matt and his Chevy didn't get to pull this out which is a victory for all ford guys sorry Matt but thanks for coming we man a trail in Johnson Valley with a monster truck we don't recommend doing this build yourself a really rad rock crawler come in here we'll see you next time on dirt every day we build a jet powered motor boat helicopter toaster oven if you liked this episode of dirt every day you can watch the next episode live right now on motor trend on demand

2014 Chevy GMC 1500 Leveling Kit

2014 Chevy GMC 1500

 Whats going on guys Were here at my brothers house And he just bought a new truck Let me show you 2017 GMC Denali And hes already inside.

Hes putting in a little under seat tray he got off eBay But its the 6.2 liter V8 truck Four wheel drive With the magnetic ride control So what were actually doing in this video Is were going to install a leveling kit Here on the front of the truck And Ive got things set up here on the tailgate And Ill show you the parts that were going to use.

Ok, so here's the kit that were using Its front a company called Suspension Max. There's the part number SMX-GM725M They say this is for the magnetic ride control And that's important because there is a little ride height sensor Connected to the control arm. And in this kit they give you These little brackets Basically is what they are These bolt to a tab on the control arm And then your ride height sensor bolts to these other tabs right here. And they give you a little list here in the instructions.

A little diagram here To show you the bolt hole locations for the sensor For the different lift positions of this kit It is an adjustable kit These are the spacers that go above the coil-over. So these bolt to the lower control arm. And relocated the lower mounting position of the coilover. An inch and a half up These alone will give you 1.5. And then you can go as much as adding another inch. With these spacers right here. So this is really all thats in the kit Some brackets, some spacers More brackets Hardware And some instructions here. So well show you how to install all this stuff.

So this truck, as I mentioned does have the magnetic ride control Which is that little arm right there So thats one way that you do know that you do have magnetic ride control So, first thing were going to do The directions actually tell you To work both sides at the same time For our purposes its easier just do one side at a time They dont specify why We need to do both sides at the same time However, to make things go easier.

We're going to disconnect the sway-bar Ok, 15mm wrench and socket. You will need a socket on the bottom because There is a little bit of a pocket right down there But 15mm wrench and socket to get that off. So well start there. So thats all we need to do. You just need to take the top little bushing and nut off You dont need to remove anything else from the swaybar.

2014 Chevy GMC 1500

 Next on the list is were going to remove The strut from the lower control arm 2 bolts there, 15mm socket or wrench Whatever you want to use And well pull those out So with the bolts out weve got two little caps there Theyre basically captured nuts. We need to remove those This one little clip here, this wire This goes into the top of the shock. For the magnetic ride control.

That clip needs to be undone So that we can get the little spacers on later on So with that one clip undone For the wiring 3 nuts here that hold the coil-over to the frame. We need to get those off Its a 18mm nut So 18mm wrench or socket Now we have to remove the ride height sensor. Only from the lower control arm mounting point And its just a 10mm box end wrench And that little tab on the control arm is actually threaded So you just twist that out So our strut assembly is completely free This is the part where were going to add the spacers.

We are only doing a 2 lift So we are only adding 2 spacers. This part, which spaces the strut The little coilover. This spaces it at the control arm end This alone give you an inch and half of lift And as I mentioned in the beginning of this video These spacers make this lift kit This leveling kit I should say, adjustable Were only doing 2 inches. So, inch and a half, plus a half. Theres our 2 So were going to drop the strut Away from the bucket here on the frame And put our two spacers in.

2014 Chevy GMC 1500

 Go ahead So this is dropped away We need to pull the little wire down through And then we slip our spacers in place So theres one And theres two So well put that strut back in place Dont forget to push your cord there we go Up and through This frame is nasty Alright, that nut is started So as you just saw This part is best with two people Weve got the nuts The new nuts that came in the kit Were just using those to help hold it in place for now Were going to leave them loose And well tighten them down at the end All we need to do is put our spacer plate underneath the strut there.

Were prying on the lower control arm from the frame Where it connects to the frame Using a block of wood here That seems to work well for us Alright, here we go Got enough Got it One thing I do want to point out here If you remember earlier when we took the swaybar Or we disconnected the swaybar You can see how much space we now have With the swaybar loosened up like that. It helps a lot Once those are in place Its just a little 14mm wrench and socket Well get those snugged down. Ok, so the side with 4 holes Its the third one up Yes yeah, that one right there That ones actually threaded That ones threaded? Thats the one that was threaded Is it going? Yeah Yeah its going So one thing that is strange about these little brackets they give us One of the holes is threaded While all the others are not.

So it does seem a little strange Im not sure why they did that Maybe cost reasons or something But in this case our hole is threaded For the amount of lift were using So, were just going to thread this in If its not threaded they do give you a nut That you use to bolt this lever to the bracket Alright, so we just put a little bit of a slight load on the suspension.

Now were just going to tighten down our swaybar Well this is it, were all done So I know this is not exactly an apples to apples comparison We have a 2017 GMC and then my 2014 GMC The 2017 is 4 wheel drive Mines 2 wheel drive But, my suspension is completely unmodified The trucks are very similar Its not an apples and oranges comparison.

We're talking new apples versus old apples So its as close as we can get We did forget to get measurements before we started the installation But you can tell just by looking at the wheel well openings Let me get over here The gap I should say Between the tire and the wheelwell And the tire and the wheelwell You can tell thats much different Hoods are a little bit different height. I mean its basically 2 And it did do a pretty good job of leveling out the truck. If I had to say, its maybe still a little nose down But Im fine with that And more importantly my brothers fine with that Its his truck.