Project Stock to Not Gets One Last Overhaul Before SEMA

An Update on Stock to Not

“Frame-off,” they said… “It will be fun,” they said…

There’s no doubt that we spend a ridiculous amount of time wrenching on our project truck, Stock to Not. We’ve been on a mad dash building and absolutely abusing our 1994 12-valve Ram 2500, but have taken a small step back from making big power to show off at the 2025 SEMA show with our friends at Liberty Forged Wheels. To make that happen, we’re tearing down this truck one last time for old time’s sake. Here are a few before pics in case you haven’t seen her before today.

In the last issue, we refinished our new-to-us donor frame with KBS Coatings so it was fresh and ready to show to a couple hundred thousand people in a few months. Now, it’s time to get the suspension put back together on our rolling frame and get the running truck torn down and swapped over to its new skeleton.

Our goal here today is to get the frame on its own weight and 100% ready for the motor and transmission to be set down in the truck. This will allow us to get the engine bay work done with as much extra room as possible to work with.

From the Bottom to the Top

Thankfully, Rock Auto still makes suspension parts for these old Ram trucks, so we got some fresh upper and lower control arms with ball joints already installed, along with a fresh Belltech suspension lowering kit. The Belltech kit includes lowering coil springs for the front, a leaf mount flip, and a 3-inch drop shackle for the rear, along with its fantastic Street Series shocks.

Once the frame was lowered down onto the rear axle and jack stands holding it up, the new leaf springs and shackle flip were installed in the rear. Everything bolted in the way it needed to and went together perfectly. Now on to the front!

With the front end of this truck being IFS (independent front suspension), it makes things SO much easier to get together without messing with a heavy Dana 60 front end that’s in the 4WD version of these trucks. With everything bolted together minus a steering box and tie rod ends, this frame is now a roller after getting some wheels bolted on!

Photos by DW Staff