Ali Mansour
Brand Manager, 4WD & Sport Utility
Once Reserved for the extreme off-road enthusiast, performance suspension systems are now just as applicable for fullsize rigs as they are for their smaller trail brethren. Now more than ever it's easier to convert your weekday worker into a dirt-gobbling monster that trades in those payloads for dirt roost come the week's end, but until recently there's been an unfair compromise where increased travel resulted in a decreased load capacity. It's time to mix a little business with pleasure.
Hearing the cries of fullsize owners across America, Carli Suspension has developed a long-travel airbag system for the late-model 3/4- and 1-ton Dodge and Ford trucks. Sold as an entirely bolt-on system, the off-road-friendly arrangement allows for an impressive 10 inches of rear travel, without any clumsy bag spacers or overly complex brackets. Though fullsize wheeling isn't anything new, the technology in leaf-spring design has greatly improved.
So if your truck yearns for the trail, but still needs to stay true to the workhorse that it was intended to be, then Carli's new long-travel airbag system just might be what you've been waiting for.
Tech Notes
Designed to work with your factory exhaust configuration, the Carli heatshield needed some minor tweaking to clear our 5-inch aftermarket exhaust system. We headed out to the hills to cycle our new setup and see how the bags fared under a little desert abuse. After putting more than 2,000 mixed miles on the entire setup, we are pleased to report that we've had no issues or complaints about our Carli long-travel system.
