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2,000-lb Capacity. Convert your Ford Van'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.
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (728 Customer Reviews)
2,000-lb Capacity. Convert your vehicle'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.Good quality part & easy to install. Instructions were on point as well. Once I set the truck down I did a small test & jumped on the bed a few times. I can instantly feel the difference!!!
Night and day difference on our 2011 F150. Before installing the vehicle was almost undrivable at highway speeds due to bouncing/jerking when pulling our trailer. The bounce/jerk has been virtually eliminated since installing the Active Suspension. Installation was a breeze, hardest part was getting the wheels off the truck due to corrosion between the wheel and the rotors. Total install time was roughly 1hr 15 minutes including the stubborn wheels. Initially I was hesitant to order due to the price, but very happy with the results, etrailer also did a great job at guiding me through the process, shipping and answering a few technical questions along the way. Highly recommend if you need a little more spring/payload.
only drove twice so far. already feel great control of the rear end. much increase of positive traction, with very little drop. extremely easy installation! perfect step by step(with pics) instructions included. also easy to follow video, somewhere. I cant remember where I watched. not hooking up trailer till next weekend, after alignment. maybe I'll be back. overall the "active" concept in this product is exactly what an intermittent hauler wants. there is no feel of preload on leafs when not loaded. the product creates much better roll stability.
2013 silverado 2500hd
Straight-forward installation on a 2007 Pleasure way Excel RV (I did it myself in a few hours) although I did have to modify the air bag mounting bracket with a slot to allow RAS hardware to fit. Great installation instructions. Vehicle height is now correct and could be made level by tension adjustment during install. Handing is improved, I was able to remove aftermarket sway bar which improved ride. I have been considering installation of stiffer rear shocks to soften rebound now that the rear spring rate is increased.
Installed yesterday. Looks good. I purchased for my 2009 f150. Fast shipping on product.i will be pulling my 28 foot trailer with my 150. I hope to get a smoother ride pulling my trailer.
Paid full price, received poorly packed open box item with missing ancillary parts.
This rating is not a reflection of the Road Master product, but of the package I received from etrailer. I’ll start with the one positive, the package arrived very quickly. I ordered it yesterday and it arrived today.
Missing directions. RoadMaster touts the clear easy to read directions as a product feature. I can download directions from etrailer. Now I get the pleasure of wincing at my phone and trying to zoom and scroll with gloves on.
Missing 2 spacing disks required to set the spring gap. So I guess I’ll guestimate… These are directly referenced on the etrailer website as included, stated as included in the directions, and on the pictures.
Missing sticker labels. I did receive a random sticker not related to this item but I didn’t receive Roadmaster labels. While this may seem like a minor complaint it shouldn’t be underestimated. The labels need to be applied because there is no noticeable branding on the product. What that means is that a mechanic who works on the truck in the future will not have a reference to be able to look-up. It would also be a nice courtesy for any future owner of the truck.
Missing warranty card. A selling point for this product is the 5 year warranty. Call me old fashioned but I would like to have the paper. With products like these there are also usually directions for registering it for any future warranty claims.
I was expecting a nicely packaged product and was sadly disappointed. The packaging was exceptionally poor. The pieces could have been at least wrapped in paper so they wouldn’t chip the paint against each other and guard against what inevitably occurred with the box giving out. These were just dropped in the box and shipped with no protection.
I put these on a 2019 Raptor. My raptor would sag so much when a trailer was on it, but after putting these on it totally fixed my problem and allowed me to pull heavy loads again. Very easy to install.
I have been using Roadmaster Active Suspension for a year now. The product works as advertised and has greatly improved the stability of my F-150 pulling a 7500 travel trailer.
Chris
10/21/2018
I have my RAS system for two years now and it performs as well the day I installed it.
Excellent addition to the truck. It did exactly what I wanted it to do, stiffen the springs so that I don't have so much squat with a trailer, as well as help to keep contact with the road by eliminating wheel bounce. I really appreciate the ride when I'm not pulling a trailer. I was worried it'd be too stiff, but no worries. One other thing, it lifted the rear of the truck up slightly so that it rides more level. I love it!
After installation (approx. 1 hour) the initial ride once installed was a surprise - the ride was improved immediately. smooth, cornering, handling bumps, slight increase in rear ride height, but my favorite one was helping level out once connected to my camper which is what prompted the purchase. ENJOY
I originally bought the product to try and bring my 2013 Chevrolet 2500 back to stock height. It has a surveyor pack tool system and tools weighting just over 1000 lbs, since the day it was new. The product did the job. The part that was a great surprise was sway control with all that weight. 6 months later I retired, sold the tool box system, but left the product on the truck because we also pull our 28 ft. travel trailer (10,000 lb) with the truck. Don’t need the lift because of the weight distribution system with anti-sway, but the truck is much more stable on the interstate than it used to be. With no load I really don’t notice the ride is any worse when hitting a bump. I love it!
Package arrived within 2 days after I ordered late in the evening. Well packaged, I have checked both the instructions and a couple of U-tube videos which show how easy they are to install. I will update upon completing the install, and had a chance to hook up our trailer.
Terry
9/7/2021
working well, but Ive misplaced the thicker tabs to beef up the RAS tension , Can these be purchased seperately,
Heather A.
10/13/2021
Purchased the RAS system to help with some bounce I was encountering when towing my 7500# Airstream, especially on older segmented concrete highways.
The installation is pretty simple with a floor jack and a couple of jack stands. The instructions are easy to follow.
With the RAS set up in the lower range of it’s tension, the problem has disappeared — any oscillation is dampened within a cycle.
2016 Nissan Titan XD with the 5l Cummins diesel
Repeat customer. Just installed my second set of Roadmaster Active Suspension springs. Have not towed with them yet; however the ride on my 2014 F150 6.5' bed pickup is noticably smoother. I expect the result when I do tow my travel trailer to be the same as with my previous truck - night and day difference (no more "white knuckle towing)!
Great system installed on 15 seater van and has shown its worth on several occasion at high speed in keeping great control in emergency turns. Highly recommended.
Mary
4/24/2022
I have had this installed on my van for a few years now and I was just reminded of them again when I got new tires put on. I was explaining them to the mechanic. He had never seen them before. I was giving a raving review and realized that I should be doing it here. I live at 6000ft on a mountain road and am constantly driving switchbacks. Before I had these installed I crawled down the mountain. It was literally scary. After they have been installed it feels sturdy and I can take turns easily. I can even avoid crazy deer jumping out in front of me without losing control of my huge van. There is NO way I could do that on a narrow winding road at an angle before. I have countless instances where I have blessed these simple additions for saving my van and ultimately the life of my children. Thank you so much for making these and marketing them. They should be standard in these larger vehicles.
I purchased this kit because I was hauling 1000-1200#s of livestock in the bed of my TitanXd. The kit greatly reduced the swaying side to side from the animals shifting around. I also noticed less bouncing fromy single axle trailer. Overall rode quality was improved and I would purchase again.
RAS is an excellent product that greatly reduced the rearend sag and sway that my 38 ft travel trailer was prone to produce. My Ford E350 V10 powered passenger van now tow my trailer like a dream.
This product is awesome, even the ride without a load was better. Great, I suggest this to anyone.
James
7/23/2021
Great, I have recommended this to all my friends and colleagues that have a truck. Even if they are not hauling just a better ride for their truck
Easy Install, Works Great, Fast Shippin g!
Initial install was very easy. They went on exactly as the instructions said. Less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Just a note: on their strongest setting they raised the rear of my truck 1.5 inches. I have not had hauled a load or pulled a heavy trailer with them on yet. I will give a follow up review after several trials with them.
Good installation instructions. Product raised my 1996 Ford E350 back to stock height which I wanted. Handles washboard roads better. I am satisfied.
Great product very easy to install.
Very simple, straightforward install on my 2019 Raptor. Lifted rear 2”, allowing travel trailer to sit level to truck. Hoping long term results are just as impressive. Thank you.
Staff answered the 800 number on a Saturday to answer a key installation question and got us on the road camping! Clutch!
Easy install and very happy with the product as I pulled a 3,000 horse trailer after install and had very little sag on the 40% setting. I would add that it raised my Raptor about two inches in the back because the weight of the truck no longer sags it at least on the 40% setting.
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Sierra K.
10/11/2021
I apologize for the missing items. I see in your account that customer service has already forwarded a message to the manufacturer to reship those out for you. As for the warranty, we do not have a card included as this is an exclusive etrailer offer to you. All you would need to do if you would ever need to use the warranty is to contact etrailer.com at 800-298-1624.