Arrives before Christmas To see if this custom-fit item will work for you please tell us what vehicle you'll use it with.
3,000-lb Capacity. Convert your Ford Excursion's leaf springs into a mechanically active suspension system. RAS adjusts to your load to level your ride. The system also increases stability, handling, and control by improving traction and reducing sway.
Features:
Specs:
All-In-One Suspension System
When towing or hauling a heavy load, you may encounter a number of problems that can make your driving experience difficult or dangerous, such as sway, body roll, or bottoming out. When your vehicle is weighted down, your factory leaf springs can't counteract these problems to the extent that they are supposed to. The weight will overpower the leaf springs and cause them to twist or flatten out. When that happens, they cannot support, level, or stabilize your vehicle effectively. Additionally, because your factory leaf springs are passive, they won't begin to tackle problems such as sway until those problems have already started.
RoadActive Suspension (RAS) kits enhance those passive leaf springs by converting them into a mechanically active, all-in-one suspension system. RAS kits have variable-rated coil tension springs that automatically adjust to your heavy load. Other suspension systems only solve a few problems and usually at the expense of other improvements your factory leaf springs may need. RAS, on the other hand, is a unique kit that provides everything you want in a suspension system without any trade-offs. It eliminates bottoming out like air springs, reduces sway and body roll like sway bars, keeps your ride level like helper springs, and improves traction and braking control like traction bars. This improves your vehicle's stability, handling, and control while you are towing or hauling, as well as when your vehicle is unloaded. RAS also makes your overall driving and towing experience safer and more comfortable, which greatly lessens driver fatigue.
Each RAS unit has a powerful variable-rated coil tension spring that converts your passive leaf spring into a mechanically-active system. Once your vehicle is loaded, the tension springs immediately activate to absorb and support the weight. This allows your leaf springs to maintain their bowed position and keeps them from flattening out or flipping over, which greatly hinders their ability to bear a heavy load. The tension springs are variable-rated, which means that the heavier your load is, the more assistance they provide to your leaf springs. Because of this design, RAS reacts instantaneously, whereas hydraulics, air springs, and other suspension systems take time to react. And unlike your factory leaf springs, RAS stops sway and sag before they even start to happen. Additionally, when your vehicle is unloaded, the tension springs disengage, allowing your leaf springs to perform as intended without hardening your ride. RAS won't hinder your leaf springs' movement, nor will it cause any friction between any of the brackets.
When under a heavy load, leaf springs are especially susceptible to axle wrap, which can cause wheel hop. Wheel hop is when the tires lose their grip on the road, causing a jarring, up-and-down movement. Axle wrap occurs when the circular motion of the tires cause the leaf springs to twist or rotate. If the leaf springs twist far enough, wheel hop can occur. RAS stabilizes your leaf springs by absorbing the force of the load they're trying to support. This eliminates axle wrap and wheel hop, as well as prevents your vehicle from bottoming out. Because of this, less strain is put on your vehicle. And by reducing some of this wear and tear, RAS helps extend the life of your leaf springs, shock absorbers, shackles, and even tires.
When driving along a curve while towing or hauling a heavy load, the back end of your vehicle or trailer can start to shift with that weight. If your factory leaf springs have flattened or twisted under this load, they won't be able to prevent it from shifting. Because of this, your trailer will sway away from your vehicle. This makes driving challenging and dangerous, as it increases the risk of body roll, which is when your vehicle drastically leans to one side. This can often cause you to completely lose control of your vehicle. Body roll is especially prevalent with multi-passenger vans and vehicles towing long campers, trailers, or boats. RAS provides a much safer ride by reinforcing your factory leaf springs and stabilizing your load. This helps prevent sway from occurring and reduces the chance of body roll while cornering, turning, and swerving. RAS also lessens the rocking motion that happens during windy conditions or when a semi passes by on the road.
When your vehicle is overloaded, the bulk of the weight transfers to the rear axle. Your factory leaf springs then become overwhelmed by this weight, as they are not strong enough to support it. This causes the back end of your vehicle to sag and the front end to rise, which means that the front tires have lost some of the grip they need with the road. In addition to loss of traction, it can also cause poor headlight aim, unintentional swerving, and an extremely bumpy and uncomfortable ride. RAS bolsters your factory leaf springs and enables them to provide support for your load without compromising ride quality or comfort. This keeps your ride level from front to back whether you are hauling a load in the bed or towing a boat, trailer, or camper. RAS also ensures that your tires have the traction they require while braking and accelerating, which improves the overall driving experience.
RAS is also customizable. During installation, the coil tension springs can be adjusted to 2 different tension settings or anywhere in between for improved road handling and support. To do this, rotate the springs while keeping the threaded rod still. As you turn the spring, use one of the 2 included spacers as a gauge to measure the widening gaps between the coils. In order for the RAS units to work as intended, you must tension the coils to a minimum of 25 percent with the 1mm white spacer and no more than 40 percent with the 2mm spacer. The springs can also be independently adjusted to compensate for off-center loads such as a handicap lift.
This custom-fit kit comes fully assembled and is easy to install. Each RAS unit simply bolts onto your factory leaf spring with the included hardware, and drilling, welding, and cutting aren't required. First, position the eye hook bracket so that it wraps around the top of the factory leaf spring eye. Then the axle bracket secures under the leaf spring and around the factory U-bolts on the other side of the leaf spring pack. Once the maintenance-free RAS units are fully installed, you won't need to monitor them as you would with air springs.
RAS is extremely durable and corrosion-resistant. The units are constructed of high-grade alloy steel, and they have an epoxy e-coat on the coil springs to provide extreme corrosion resistance. The brackets on the ends of each unit resist the effects of water and other elements, and they have a salt spray rating of more than 800 hours.
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
What's up everybody, Adam here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna to be taking a look at a very popular suspension enhancement kit for your truck. And it's the Roadmaster suspension enhancement kit. Be sure to use our fit guide, put your vehicle's year, make, and model in there, and that's going to give you all of the compatible suspension systems that you can get for your truck. So this add-on component isn't going to require us to take any of the factory equipment off, so I really liked that. Buy a new truck, you want a little bit more help with the suspension.
You don't really have to remove anything that's already there, that's kind of cool. So another thing that's nice about that, adding another component that's going to take some of that load is just going to put less strain on your components. So these three leaf springs are handling, let's just say, 5,000 pounds. Now we have a fourth component, so that can be divided by four, instead of three. It's just gonna prolong the life.
It's gonna prevent any axle wrapping, any bottoming out of any sorts. And this is going to be a lot less maintenance than your typical airbags. And the cool thing about it is just like airbags, we can kind of adjust it, but this one we can as well. I actually think that this is a lot smoother than airbags because I've ridden with air bags, with no load on them, and it's like riding just on bricks. It's feels like there's not any suspension at all.
So the coil springs really gonna help that. It does have a powder-coated finish to it as well, so it's not really gonna rust away over time. So, I definitely think that this is probably one of the best things you can get for your truck. And even above airbags. This is also gonna help limit your sway that you might feel whenever you're going down the road, whenever you're hauling something.
A lot of times, whenever your trailer gets off centered, the opposing side of your suspension's gonna kind of correct for that. But having a little bit more support is gonna be good because it's not gonna over-correct and that's when all that crazy sway starts to happen. Also, with air bags, a lot of the times you don't have a whole lot of travel. We're not really limiting our travel here, we're just kind of beefing it up a little bit. With limited travel, whenever you hit bumps and stuff, sometimes you start hopping your back end off of the road whenever we're not hauling something. With this, we're not gonna have to worry about that just because it's just a little bit tighter suspension. It's not really completely locking it in with a set of airbags. Comparing them to upgraded bump stops. A lot of them that we sell are just a little bit bigger than this, so they start to hit the axle a little bit sooner. But, whenever the suspension isn't sagging that much, you're not really getting the benefits of it, because it's only activated when it's under load. So this it's activated and right now. So you don't really have to worry about you getting to that point for your upgrade to start kicking in. With this, you can have it kick in right on the get go. Well I called my buddy Joe and he's to put some weight in the back of the truck. This is about 1500 pounds, give or take, so it's quite the load. Oh wow. I can already see the spring workin'. So this is gonna be very interesting on our test course. Thanks, Joe. You're the best, I really appreciate it. Ooh nice. Right as he lowers it down, I don't know if you can see it on camera, but that spring is definitely workin'. Less load on my leaf springs. That's what we're really going for here. Oh wow. I can definitely tell a difference. My truck is typically not happy with this much weight, but it just feels tighter. Meaning, I just feel like the suspension is doing more sooner, just so I don't hit those overloaded springs down at the bottom. Cause' that's when you can start really messing stuff up, you overload em' too much and then release strings will not work as well anymore. You're looking for the easiest way to beef up your suspension, but also have some adjustability. The Roadmaster suspension enhancement system is gonna be great for any type of truck that you may have. These are definitely something that I would use. And again, this was the Roadmaster suspension enhancement kit, and I'm Adam with etrailer..
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