Carli Media Day - Barstow

This is a Carli day in the dirt, our first media event... and our last romp on local stomping grounds as a crew. We were presenting the Ford system to any would-be demo drivers via "here, go ahead and drive it down the race course" free-for-all test drives... and what do you think happens when every single Sage Carli invention hits the dirt as a rat pack? Taking pictures and trying to film this event was like herding 500 horsepower squirrels.



CT McDonald's Silver Megacab is still one of the best looking trucks to be born at this company... and even today, he's riding on Sage's very latest 3.0 King valving. The 2.5 King shock tuning scored huge out there... but that's over on the Super Duty blog, enough about that here.

6" Radius Arm / Bilstein 2.65" ACV

So enter the cast of the latest advancements in Dodge Ram Suspension Engineering and Tuning. These are the guys with the smoothest riding, fastest shit there is right now. Pardon my French...

You guys remember Shaun, operations manager, tech support, shock builder, installer, customer service, ball joint inspector, shipping overseer and all around wrench. Shaun drives like he works. Right now, there's like one other guy that could hold a candle to the stunts he pulls behind the wheel. Luckily, he's doing research, so it's okay. We're really big on our homework here... and Shaun is our new point man in getting down to business.


The 6" Radius Arm System with the Bilstein 2.65" ACV package is the hardest moshing bolt-on product there has ever been. As far as DIY bolt-on/off Dodge Ram Suspension goes, there's never been anything that could do this out of the box.

Shaun's developing his driving style and experience... but for now, it's hammer down first, think second. Luckily, he's got a truck that can take it and suspension that delivers control at high speeds and in big terrain. What's left behind a Shaun-line... is a path of destruction. Tree branches, entire bushes, huge roost marks... everything but pieces of the truck. Here's a still of a Shaun-line being created.

By the end of the day, the red quad cab in the present Carli fleet gave Greg Foster from Industrial Motoring a ride to come back and explain... somehow, Shaun managed to negative-G his passenger while severely overdriving a whoop section. But now we know that the Radius Arm system is brushing off some serious action and the latest Bilstein ACV reservoir tune is soaking up Shaun-line creating hits... hits that the rest of us would never do to our 45K dollar truck. R&D in process.

Bilstein 2.65" ACV

Enter Travis, sporting a Carli signature build; Bilstein 2.65" ACV, full leafs, sway bar, ball joints, axle truss, dual stabilizers, diff guard, Walker Evans Beadlocks and a custom Carli Edition ATS Performance 48RE... all he's missing is the Toyo's.


Travis is sporting the latest ACV tune and this is his first rip in the dirt with a direct Cummins connection. Having a custom transmission in the package changes the whole game, you can really start driving the truck. He's learned the tire lesson now and is going Toyo here shortly... he's warrantied a BFG tire after every trip to Mexico.



Travis is a our media crew chief and has been steadily growing his driving experience and has logged many R&D miles... and since has pretty much done everything under a Dodge Ram, except removing the cab from the chassis. His lines are pretty hot, he has a lot of confidence in his truck and isn't shy about rolling into the throttle and riding out a whoop section. The Bilstein ACV tune is so composed and collected, you can see it's balance on video. The back does exactly what the front does and the truck stays level... no matter what. It offers a completely different feel than a King, doing the exact same thing.

King 2.5" Triple Bypass Front/Rear

Speaking of King shocks, here's a sleeper of a Carli Engineering Project. Triple Bypass King 2.5's on all four corners. This is the most versatile system available, talk about a bolt-on system that you can literally, make it do whatever you wanted. You have 12 tubes of adjustability built into another DIY off-the-shelf Sage Carli package.

Pat is point man on the lift these days. He was tasked with race truck completion and prep and has assumed most of the mechanical responsibilities that take place in the R&D bay. Pat brings something unique to the crew, that is the most Dodge Ram saddle time a person could have. He used to be a professional driver and it was a Cummins powered Dodge Ram Dually. What happens when you bolt-on the most straight axle wheel travel that is interfaced with King 2.5 race bypass shocks with custom Carli pistons and valve profile... is someone who is as comfortable behind the wheel as your average person in a Starbuck's drive through, except he's in 3rd gear locked with his rear tires about 3 feet of the ground in a slight mid-air tweak... but he's at his resting heart rate in the cab.



It's an interesting combination, this would be like giving a NY cab driver an M5 and a "don't worry, if it breaks on a media day, it's on the company" hall pass. Pat's truck is growing up to be the 12valve envy in the 2nd Gen world.

Performance 2.0 / Long Travel Airbags

Pulling the weight out to the party was Robert's 06 long bed sporting the Performance 2.0 with long travel airbags. He towed his bumper pull out to the Barstow main pit area and even hit the race course for the camera. That's asking a lot from a Dodge Ram trailer hauling daily driver... but this truck had a day living out the Carli Suspension performance spectrum.


From the driveway to the trailer, with the trailer to the dirt, from the camp to the race course... and back. Robert's got the whole package for work and play, so if jumping whoops and making desert trails wider isn't your thing, here's another completely researched, engineered and proven package that's doing it.



The Performance 2.0 still proves to be a worthy competitor in the realm of off-road recreation and with the addition of the long travel airbags, this kit can pull triple duty in a day and shine.

Dominator 3.0

And behind the scene and camera stands Carli Suspension's research Baja party testbed. This was the only truck that drove to Barstow with fresh Baja roost. The Dominator 3.0 is still the suspension system that is doing it all. When this truck is California, it pounds out 200 miles a day on California super grids... and when it's in Baja, it logs 200 miles a week of whatever in the dirt. It Preran every race course there was for a year, co-starred in the Baja 500 Team Lexus Recovery in the Urupan mtns and had its own day on the track. Last Saturday it was pulling trophy truck recovery ops for Jason Whipple at the RECORD San Vicente 200. This is a turn-key, do whatever the hell you want with 100% uptime daily driver, prerunner, chase, recovery, Baja party truck.

Our next media drive is scheduled for October 29th... and it will be in my backyard... Carli Media Day - Baja. I'll be taking the crew for a 3-hour tour on the 2nd toughest line there is down here. In the Dodge Ram suspension and engineering arena, the Carli Suspension crew is demonstrating solid lines in where the high-performance, quality and durability game is, today.

Researched. Engineered. Proven. This is the byproduct of our R&D, experienced drivers, the very latest in straight-axle shock tuning being implemented on seasoned trucks.