Iam restoring my 98.5 2500. It came with a snow plow the front springs were already replaced can anyone recommend a oem like replacement I did not want to put air or adjustable shocks in and do not know the best Gas or hydraulic shock to use. I am replacing all 4.

 

Bilstein 5100's, I have a 2" leveling kit in front and they are perfect. not sure if the fronts will work without a leveling/lift kit. rears are perfect on my stock height HD suspension

/thread

 

Is your ram really getting 24.42 mpg ? I think my 98 24 v is getting more like 15 . I have not started on the mileage thing yet.First I want it debugged.

 

My truck seems to get better than average mpg's... ~350k miles on it, drive it prob about 30k a year. sometimes a lot more, some time a little less...

Its a 94 12valve regular cab, 5spd, 3.73(ish?? dont remember ATM) diffs, stock wheels/tire size, 4" straight exhaust turbo back, BHAF, HX35. It will reliably get 24+mpg if all the following are met:

--~55mph, try to stay below 60.
--keeping RPM's below 1750 on the tach at all possible times
--get into 5th gear at 1500rpm in 4th.

that with about 70% highway driving and the rest city, down in the inland empire/LA area... I go the same route quite a bit, and all over Southern California regularly

straight city driving in the high desert I get 17+mpg
straight highway driving at normal speeds, I get ~20mpg

A/c doesnt seem to affect it at all...
Tall workmaster gemtop loaded with a moderate amount of tools didn't affect it much..

pulling 9k to Oregon in a triple axle 7x8.5x24ft aztek trailer got me about 15. max speed whole trip was 65 in a little stretch, mostly 50-55.

just brought my 11.5 lance loaded from so cal up to Oregon, (950 miles). averaged just a hair under 15, I had my boot into the pedal going through some of the flatlands though, had 70mph for a bit, mileage while doing 70 with a massive camper was 12-13 :|, so after i calculated that f%#! up out on paper I was doing 50 again , over the hills and through the woods all the rest of the way... at lower speed with the camper it climbed up to 15-17mpg range, which I think is ok for the amount of crap you can take with ya.

Going to drive it home soon and see if I can get a new personal record, I want to break 25mpg SOOOO bad... best I could ever get out of a 24v (STOCKER!!) was 22mpg, you cant fool the vp44 into saving fuel like you can the mechanical stuff... not without special programming...

the key to higher MPG is having extra power available, and not using it...

---AutoMerged DoublePost---

I also had a 98 12 valve, 4x4, ext cab longbed with a auto, I could pull about 20+ from it if empty, only problem was the damn thing would kick out of overdrive too often, and there was NO torque, once it dropped out of O/D, loaded, that autobox made me want to kill everybody... on flat land it was ok, not great... but in the mountains/hills/speedbumps... it would lose all power except when in O/D.

If i started up a hill loaded(8-10k, once with 14k), EVERY F%&#IN' TIME:

1.truck slows down a little bit... drops from O/D
2.screams it's a$$ off in 3rd, wont accelerate, still slowing down...
3.started overheating, with a brand new rad/tstat/wpump/coolant, +extra electric fans!!!
4.now doing about 30, speed still dropping, engine temp gauge at 1 o'clock...
5.end up doing about 3-5mph up a normal calif. pass grade(4-5%?), truck overheating!
6.pull over and wait in neutral with my foot on the brake and the accelerator holding a high idle for 10 min...
7.engine temp gauge cools a bit, gets to somewhat close to normal 11o'clock reading...
8.start out again, get up to 3-5mph,
((seriously, thats IT! no matter how hard I push that pedal...))
REPEAT steps 5-8 according to how long the grade is... siskou(spelling??) pass into Oregon took me about 4 stops/starts, cajon in southern cali took 3 stops...

 

If you have 2 inches of lift you should get 2" longer shocks or 2" extenders for stock length shocks for best possible shock performance

 

X2 on the Bilstein 5100s