Ordering new Ram and Northstar 12 STC

Diesel and 4x4 put the extra weight on the front. Doesn’t affect camper loading in the real world, only in the theoretical brochure world. And ALL those numbers are pulled out of thin air, to set the truck into the classification they want it in.

You can have air ride on an F450 if you want, Kelderman makes an awesome air suspension setup for it.

I just bought a 2018 ram 3500 DRW gas 6.4 4.10's crew cab and ended up with a payload of 7K and a TC rating of 6K and a GVWR 0f 14K. I believe if you look at the rating of that 450 being a heavier truck to start with you may get more actual payload with the 3500 , the 450 it a towing machine but the payloads are about the same as a 3500.you did not say if your going diesel again but I went with the 6.4 hemi and it seems to have more than enough power. Apparently I missed the cold start squealing noise the 6.4 makes in my year long attempt to research the truck but that's another story for another time . I have yet to carry the TC waiting to get tie downs installed , I sat the camper in the truck and it just about leveled it out @ 5400 lbs so I am going with stable loads and a sway bar and maybe firmer or adjustable shocks. You will have lees payload with the diesel and even lees with a 4x4 which could be a concern if your loaded up for a full time adventure. I ordered the regular suspension because I had read a few posts that the air assist worked well but with a heavy load and all the weight on the bags the ride was not as firm or stable as some would have liked and the fact that there are no after market products sold for the air assist system however most that have it really like it , it is a $1500 option so for that you could just about rig out your truck however you wanted to.
Mike

Mike

I heard lot of good about RAM factory air and would I hear that over a year ago, I might not be driving F350 today.
Talking about gearing, I order 3.55 for my dually and never complain about lack of acceleration.
The truck has program that limits the torque on lower gears to avoid frame twisting.
Have been pulling 16% grades with camper and 22% grades empty on 4th gear @ 40 mph.
I think you need 4.10 differential for 30,000 lb setups as today's engine with almost 1000 of torque can pull a lot on high gears.
Fuel consumption is always badly misrepresented on forum.
I usually keep CC at 60 mph with my camper and on good day go >13, on bad day it drops to 11,5.
But occasionally I hit 45 mph highway and mpg goes to 18.
So posting mpg without giving average speed is always fishy.
Too often I see somebody posting "I drive up to 70 mph" and then he post picture of cluster showing average about 35 mph.
New truck computer gives pretty good calculations BTW. I use fuelly and the pump calculation is within 0.2 mpg from computer calculation.
14,000 miles average shows 12.2 on fuelly. Truck driven over 90% with good load.

Get the factory air on the RAM. I have it, I haul heavy and I love it.

Since we are the only ones on this forum with a 2014 Ram and the STC, I think, you must be talking about our rig.

Just wanted to give you an updated MPG number. This past summer we did the AK/Canada trip from VA, ~13500 miles. We were FULLY loaded with 4 people for 64 days, usually carrying 5-10 gal extra diesel, so no light weight trip.
My hand calculated MPG overall was 11.75. Now this included lots of 75mph into a strong headwind(thanks ND where we were getting around 9mpg) and well over 1000 miles of 5-30mph gravel roads and frost heave accel/decel. The best we saw was a stretch at 12.42 MPG.
Also around ~866 MPG of DEF. So, more reasonable driving conditions and lighter weights might get you a much better MPG.
I have all STC and stuff weights, and mileage numbers in spreadsheets if interested.

You’ll dump what was still an almost brand new truck/camper setup and buy another new setup for well over $100k but a couple MPG is the deciding factor?
I mean, we all decide for ourselves what we want to do but the math there doesn’t add up.
I’d go with the one you like better. That wide front axle on the F450 and the turn radius would seem to make it pretty attractive for a big camper, and I’m even a Cummins fan saying that.