About Carli Suspension, Inc
Carli Suspension products are created to meet the expectations of the daily street driver to the most extreme avid off road enthusiast. From the urban street jungles to the desolate dusty roads of Baja, Carli Suspension products will exceed all expectations.
Stock production trucks are built by standards that are influenced greatly by keeping costs down. From an enthusiast point of view these standards simply do not work for us. From the person looking to get a better ride with a more aggressive stance to the person looking get serious off road performance, Carli Suspension understands the needs of the enthusiasts.
When Sage Carli started Carli Suspension, he embarked upon a mission to bring the highest quality performance suspension systems to the market. In order for Sage to attain this goal he surrounded himself with all the right people which consisted of experts of their fields such as King Shock Technology, Deaver Springs, and Bilstein Shocks. By letting the experts of these fields do what they do best, each and every Carli Suspension system exceeds the expectations of even the most stringent consumer. By focusing on the goal of having the best suspension systems on the market, Carli Suspension has developed multiple high performance Dodge suspension systems that are of the highest quality and the best performing on the market.
Carli Suspension is committed to quality and excellence. This is epitomized by the ever growing list of satisfied customers. Carli Suspension’s relentless pursuit of producing the best performing suspension systems is something that can be felt every time a customer drives their truck. Carli wouldn’t have it any other way.
Company History
Carli Suspension, Inc was founded in 2003. Sage Carli, a veteran installer and designer of true suspension systems, made a personal decision to offer the market a new breed of Dodge Ram Suspension Systems. The Carli Suspension, Inc’s business philosophy and independent engineering approach brings new innovations to the market that was never available to consumers.
Carli Suspension, Inc was founded on bridging a gap in the market – previous providers of Dodge Ram Suspension Systems underserved the consumers. Focusing on 100% quality of a complete suspension system, it was clear that a new breed of components had to be born. Giving a customer a vehicle that wasn’t perfect, was unacceptable, however there wasn’t an alternative product line that addressed this issue. Every kit on the market had an imperfection or caused a band-aid type installation, or other modification to force the fitment. It was this very principle that lead to Sage taking matters into his own hands and producing a bolt-on suspension kit that didn’t compromise ride quality, OEM configuration, component longevity and performance.
About Sage
Starting out his truck expertise, Sage Carli was an advanced diesel tech in the U.S. Military from 1994 to 1997 making for an accumulated 13 years as a professional vehicle fleet technician. His experience quickly moved into the desert racing community holding team responsibility for marquee campaigns that included co-driver for the Baja 1000 in 2005, co-driver for Donahoe’s stock full initiative in the 2006 Vegas to Reno desert race. Sage’s expertise gained recognition where he was invited to provide support for other professional organizations, such as Master Craft racing, Donahoe Racing, and DirtNewz.com. Sage is the co-builder for the Carli Race truck as well.
About The Product Line
Sage Carli started from the ground up with a product line that offered completely custom designed systems. The fundamental values behind the initiative were to bring a superior suspension solution to the market, for the real-world truck owner, not just the Baja fanatic. King Off Road Shocks were selected for the platform, which took several customizations. Shock body length, reservoir length and utilizing pre-runner caps on a race piston and body, the foundation began to take shape. Multiple rate coil springs and rear leaf packs were designed to carry the weight of the Dodge Ram to marry up to the new technology King was developing for Carli Suspension.
Designing Suspension
Carli Suspension, Inc works with race application components with proven track records. Sage Carli takes these high performance shocks, springs and components and marries them into a functional system for the private market, not the desert racer. These systems all aim to dramatically improve the comfort, street drive and capabilities of the vehicle and allow for incredible off-road performance. Starting with race proven components, specially adapted to these suspension systems, Carli can deliver a street drive improvement above and beyond OEM with massive off-road gains. Very few off-road enthusiasts are capable of taking a Carli system to its limits. The engineering, development and testing performed, results in full race application components being tamed for the rest of us. Providing realistic high-performance system for the market that utilizes their truck for more than Baja desert racing. Sage produces superior all-around suspension systems for the real-world market.
Shown above a Carli Dodge CTD undergoing off-road testing in Ocotillo Wells, CA. This is a beta valve profile system test with front hydraulic bump stops, full leaf packs and MR front coils. Left demonstrates high-speed cornering capability, stability and total vehicle control. Right shows low speed, high-angle vehicle attitude. Testing is continuous at Carli Suspension, Inc.
Each system is just that, a complete functional family of suspension components. Simply adding one or a couple components, such as changing shocks on a stock truck, will not deliver the ride quality that Carli systems offer. Purchasing off-the-shelf shocks with generic valve profiles could actually cause the truck to ride worse or under perform off-road. The Carli identity and brand position is to provide the highest performing Dodge Ram Suspension systems available, systems that can be ordered with add-on components to meet the need of any Dodge owner. Truck suspension from the OEM manufacture is widely based on cost savings, not performance. Many times the market is saturated with poor suspension performance and even the phrase “This thing rides like a truck” is acceptable by American standards. Trucks ride stiff and much of the road noise, surface vibration and bumps are felt throughout the vehicle. It doesn’t have to be this way – true suspension systems are available that change the way the truck feels. Drastically.
Carli Suspension offers the highest quality components available, King Off Road shocks, customized to work in concert with Dodge Ram geometry and mount points, not for Baja racing, but for the truck owner who is going to utilize his/her vehicle for what it was intended to do, while delivering a smooth, comfortable and safe ride.
During off-road testing, top speed runs over uneven terrain are included. Please keep in mind that this is a professional driver with spotters supporting this initiative. Shown here is a Dodge Ram CTD running a sand wash with mild whoops at 70 mph.
Engineering Philosophy
Strong Enough for Baja… Tuned for the Real World
Carli Suspension focuses on real world applications and designs are born from a customer driven approach to suspension solutions. Built to withstand the harsh conditions of Baja racing… tuned to offer the rest of the world the best performing suspension systems on the market.
Sage Carli works closely with King Off Road to continuously mature the product line
All of the suspension systems that are born at Carli Suspension are designed for the real-world and real life of our customer and their truck. Not everybody is going to jump a truck in Mexico. This means that we extend suspension solutions that support any condition and use from commuting on a freeway every day, all the way to high performance off-road conditions hundreds of miles from home… or hundreds of miles from anything, for that matter. We engineer according to a realistic and customer driven design cycle. Our systems are comprised of a component family, where individual components work for multiple systems, even multiple years of the Dodge Ram series. This allows our customers to upgrade from system to system at their own pace.
The engineering never stops, its constant. There’s always something new being developed to improve durability, eliminate the weak links and offer customers the best suspension solution available. The thinking doesn’t stop once a system has been released. Every customer is different and sometimes you just have to go left when you thought you were going right.
Every component is examined for quality and strength with engineers prior to acceptance
Another customer scenario that speaks for this philosophy is a 2007 Dodge 2500 HD, standard cab, long bed, CTD. This truck is carrying a 2,000 lbs camper, permanently and will be seeing thousands of off-road miles scooting around Baja. This isn’t something you can purchase an off-the-shelf suspension system for, and certainly, high performance valve profiles do not apply. Another custom solution was the result. There isn’t a problem that is overlooked. Patents are pending, products are in development and a true engineer is serving the market. Welcome to the difference.
In order to offer the highest quality suspension systems on the market, we start with the highest quality products. King Off Road shocks, inarguably the dominant player in desert racing, Baja and premier trophy-truck competition is the flagship shock offered at Carli Suspension. Deaver springs, Bilstein shocks and aerospace engineering comprise the foundation for our solutions.
King Off Road shocks are included with each of Carli’s flagship high-performance systems
These products, alone, aren’t enough. Stringent engineering and design life cycles render a true “system”. Each component is designed, weighted, valved and cut to work perfectly with one another. Iteration after iteration, these systems are refined through a robust testing and development cycle. No product has gone on a customer’s truck without being on, and off, and back on, and off and back on a Carli truck in order to achieve the best possible performance level. King Shock Valve profiles took months, just to get the street ride perfect only to work on the big bumps after that.
Our customers purchased a Dodge Ram truck because of their build quality, capability and performance characteristics. This is an investment that should not be overlooked. Upgrading suspension with a Carli system should mean that customer can do everything better and safer than OEM. This philosophy has lead to several key innovations, such as long travel air bags for example, a world-first technology born from a customer-oriented engineer, Sage himself. This is a hallmark of the Carli Suspension approach, if our customers reduced the truck’s towing and hauling capabilities in an effort to maximize the 10% of the time the truck is being mobbed over a desert floor, it would be a compromise that simply isn’t acceptable for Sage.
Sage Carli takes the time to listen to every customer’s concerns about investing in a suspension system
By focusing on total customer satisfaction, and innovating for a market that has been left hanging by other high-performance suspension providers, world-first products are now available. Only Carli Suspension can offer a customer a truck that can carry more weight than stock, double the wheel travel and safely carry high speeds over rough terrain, all in one. Only after the release of the long travel air bags did the job feel complete, prior to that, the playing field was level.