Carli Off Road Proving Grounds

This is what the Carli Suspension crew does when we're they're not shoving pallets of product out the door and taking sales calls all week. Enter Sage, his two media point men, our trucks and the newest owner of the whole Sage Carli off-road package. One thing we learned after thousands of miles tromping up and down the Baja Peninsula is that it takes the whole package to do this succecssfully. You can bolt up shocks and go pound, but the service life of everything else is on the chopping block as soon as you crack your first smile in the dirt.

Steering systems fail, stock transmissions melt, tires get destroyed, front axles bend, ball joints pound out and motor mounts submit when you do this more than once a year. When you have the entire package, you can do this... every day and turn your truck into a turnkey go-anywhere do-anything off-road exploration adventure lifestyle truck.

This weekend was a local trip to the pine forests of Baja - Laguna Hanson. An easy, and beautiful drive, to some high elevation hanging out with good friends. We get to excersize our trucks, get out of cell phone reception and do a little all around off-road product proving as a crew.

The Whole Package

This truck can leave the garage, kiss the highway goodbye and drive thousands of off-road miles with just the turn of the key. This is the package that has proven to deliver:

• Dominator 3.0 w/ King 4-tube Bypasses & Carli Pistons
• Chromoly Control Arms
• Upper and Lower Extreme Duty Ball Joints
• Dual Bilstein Steering Stabilizers
• Chromoly Motor Mounts
• Front Axle Truss
• Front Differential Guard
• ATS Diesel Full Billet Custom Carli Baja Edition 48RE
• Walker Evans Beadlocks
• 37" Toyo Open Country MT's
• Redhead Steering Gear Box
• Single Spare and Chase Box

There are several brands that have not failed us and are part of the equation. I am on my 17th Toyo MT and have still not had a flat tire. My ATS 48RE has laughed off more partying than 4 previous transmissions. Redhead steering gears has worked with Carli Suspension and earned their place here. The best thing about Walker Evans, aside from being the strongest wheel we know of, is that my tire pressure is like a Ronco chicken machine... "set it and forget it". I check my air pressure once a year - when I put my tires on.

If you want to know what are the reliable proven products that have documented more off-road R&D and brought it home - here they are.




This is some slow-speed fun posting up high angles while cranking on a hydro-formed frame and watching Toyo foot prints stand their ground regardless of what is going on. I got my Megcab mostly on this rock a year ago while playing around on a weekday... then Alex took it to a new level.

He parked his truck on this boulder and left his rig sitting there like a billy goat. This is not your average daily driver diesel truck activity... but when you have it all, go ahead and play, your rig is ready for wherever the party takes you.


This truck is a real off-road truck... and it lives the Baja life. He's an experienced co-driver in RECORD and this truck does it all... preruns the race courses, tows the 7s truck and trailer, chases point-to-point races, mans static pits and goes onto the course when it's time to scrape a busted race car off the track. This setup is the swiss army knife of off-road. Alex has been getting in more party miles on his truck since his latest build with more miles and no issues, where as before, it was back to the shop to check something after every romp.


I have to digress from my last post when I said I was taking the guys on the 2nd hardest line there is down here... this weekend turned out to be a mellow run, but we have dates scheduled for a few more drives before the end of the year including a tip run.

The Carli Baja party, (cough) I mean, R&D Continues...