Air Ride Vs. Coil Overs

[jake8092]

Hey Guys!

I'm in the reform stage of the plans with my ride. It all started out as my 13 second 4000lb car getting beat by a mild 5.0 foxbody...long story short I started 4 linking the rear about 4 years ago but college hasnt left much room for funds. Now that's all behind me and I am struck between stickin the coil overs on all 4 corners or running one of Air rides new street challenge kits. I've read all the articles and magazines alive but I want an honest opinion, not that of an editor and a pro driver on a closed track! I've grown out of the "I wanna go fast in a strait line" phase and plan on running an LS1 and T56 set-up that will hold it's own on an autocross track. Hell I'm even open to sticking with a spring set-up Like one offered by BMR!

Any advice and/or comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Jake

[ProdigyCustoms]

Which suspension is without a doubt our most popular question on the tech line.

What kind of car is it? Air Ride is awesome. So are coil overs. Really depends on budget and requirments. Whats important?

[jake8092]

Haha, Ya I have noticed that it is a popular subject. The car is a 72 chevelle and I'm not looking at the cost of parts as being a huge factor, the way I see it is that it's worth spending the money to have what I want verses regretting what I wish I had done!!

Right know I am leaning to the air ride, There's just somethin there that I havent sone before or really seen too much of at any local shows. Hell I've seen less than a handful of cars here with LS swaps!!

Thanks,
Jake

[fishtail8]

I prefer the simplicity of coilovers. Some of the air systems have too many things to go wrong for my liking. Especially when set up to lay frame...

[BK2LIFE]

i build air ride car/truck/bikes you name it.
it really depends on what you want? meaning, you want to be super low and drag your exhaust over everything? do you want the simplicity of puttin on coils and being doen with it?

is this car like a few of ours that has been sitting for years and wont be roadworhty for several more years? coils are cheap, air ride is not.

let your airbags sit around and its like letting old tires sit around.

airride vehicles ride really nice.

tell us more of what your looking for, and we/i can help you out.

but i will tell you this, if your thinkin of airride, then the addiction is already there. kinda like tatoos and women...

-james

[JRouche]

I have a 62 nova with an art morrison four link rear and coilovers. A mustang II front.

I am right now installing a Air Ride tech suspension. Full electronic controller, and shockwave air spring/shocks on all four corners. I cant say how it will ride cause I dont know. But I have all the stuff and its high quality. Nice aluminum shocks, double adjustable. I may post a build up of it here if there is any interest.

As of right now I have the lower mounts made and welded in. I have the upper mounts made, 1/2" plates.

Today I made some rods to mimic the ride height so I can bolt those in place of the air ride shocks while I build the watts link. I have to remove the coilovers to build the watts link. I wanna set the car on hard struts, at ride height while doing the watts link. They will support the car for the build.

The rods are an exact bolt in for the shocks so I will also use them to weld in the upper mounts too. They look like lil trailing arms, actually took me as much time to make them as it did to make real trailing arms for my other car LOL I was screwing up left and right. But I got it right in the end.

All fun stuff. Spent all day in front of the lathe today screwing up :) But they are done, and SOLID... JR

[darren@ridetech]

I may post a build up of it here if there is any interest.

You can't brag about it withoug posting up some pics....it just ain't right. :)

[MonzaRacer]

When it comes to Air ride you cant beat the ability to adjust the spring rate several times a day, if you have several friends in car you hit switch and relevel car(if you have manual setup.
I have a 3 manual switch setup on my 78 C10 and it is awesome, adding in the solenoids later on is fairly easy.
As for aging get off that box cause semis put 500,000 miles on them before having issues, I worked in a truck shop and we probably replaced 4 in the whole time I was there and only one was a failure from defect others were from bad suspension.
Air Springs dont wear like tires, tires heat and cool, flex repeatedly.
My air ride is over 4 yrs old, has well over 200,000 miles on it and is still going strong, if the springs are improperly installed(ie I measured wrong) they will get damaged. but unless they rub or get poked they will live for years.
As for coil overs, I have never liked the ride the presented by the coilovers.
I can take my truck or when I had it my old 71 Monte with rear air ride and throw them in a corner and even with off the shelf shocks they hook like glue till tires are maxed out.
And besides the bag (actual spring) can be replaced pretty easily and if you replace coils you should replace in pairs.
My 71 Monte even had single manual fill lines on the rear and had zero issues.

[chicane67]

I have tried for a couple of years now to get the AirRide cat's to build or even test a one off system with some REAL dampers... to no avail. I mean... one system could yield a huge amount of data... and it could also, if it does what it should, give the race car guys another option that is realistic.

It would be nice to see what the AirRide system could do with a double or triple adjust damper... from per-say, Penske or Moton.

Hint hint, nudge nudge.. Darren.

[bret]

I have tried for a couple of years now to get the AirRide cat's to build or even test a one off system with some REAL dampers... to no avail. I mean... one system could yield a huge amount of data... and it could also, if it does what it should, give the race car guys another option that is realistic.

It would be nice to see what the AirRide system could do with a double or triple adjust damper... from per-say, Penske or Moton.

Hint hint, nudge nudge.. Darren.

got some stuff coming up with a double adjustable monotube remote reservoir shock.

If you like the Moton, Penske, Ohlins, etc. units we can certainly build you a set of ShockWaves using those components. I have not done any testing with those particular units...I am sure they could be of some benefit in the right hands on the right car.
I may try some this summer on the Mustang...always looking for something to play with!

[ProdigyCustoms]

The car is a 72 chevelle and I'm not looking at the cost of parts as being a huge factor, the way I see it is that it's worth spending the money to have what I want verses regretting what I wish I had done!!

Thanks,
Jake

Well Jake, I can tell you if the cost does not limit your choice, that when we build high end cars in our shop without cost constraints, very often we use Air Ride. We have used Air Ride recently on a couple of our most high profile cars, Project Emptynest and Larry's MotiV8. Next we will be running Air Ride our next high profile car, a Bull Run contender, 68 Chevelle, that is going to banzai across the country. More to come on this one soon.

The Air Ride Chevelle stuff is really nice, rides killer, handles great, instant cockpit adjust-ability, what's not to like!

[JRouche]

I have tried for a couple of years now to get the AirRide cat's to build or even test a one off system with some REAL dampers... to no avail.

It would be nice to see what the AirRide system could do with a double

I got the double adjust shocks with my shockwaves. Are they not considered decent?? I really dont know much about them. They look nice and all. Rebuildable. I am assuming they are the same shocks they sell independent of the air springs. I think they are the VariShocks, not Penske, but are they decent?? Prolly more suited for street rods huh? JR http://www.cachassisworks.com/vas_home.html

[Fesler built]

Air is the only way to go, bolts in nice and you will love the ride and you can use the car on the tracks all day long. fun and handle great cant beat that.

[jake8092]

Thanks for all of your support guys! I am still leaning twards the Air Ride Setup, you guys are helping to confirm just that. However I have been researching the front and rear kits that DSE is building and i must say I am impressed.

The only negatives I have to mention about the coil overs is the ride; the two coil cars that I have ridden in ride like hay wagons! Trust me...I am from Kansas so I have ridden on many hay trailers. haha! With that being said, Do you guys agree or is it possible that the geometry was botched job on both cars? (I've heard that it can happen)...

[MonzaRacer]

coil overs suck for quality, but do handle good, Ill stick with air good

[Grancoupe]

Not trying to hijack but what about power. Can the air ride systems handle high horsepower?

[bret loibl]

hey there jake.... Iam here in wichita also.. I have had a couple of pro street cars with coil overs and then i built a 67 chevy II with air ride and loved it...In fact i just picked up a morrison chassis for a 56 chevy that has air ride. The ride is much better and then you can slam it down at a show for that really cool look..If it was a drag race only car stay with coil overs anything else if you can afford it air ride is the way to go....Bret [email protected]

[AndrewNTX]

I did my first AirRide install Spring '07 on a Falcon so I was new to air. It has been very rewarding and I am very happy with it. I went this route vs lowering coil springs to get a good dropped aired out look yet provide a nice street and highway drive. It does everything I wanted. Everyone who rides in the car is complimentary about the ride quality. And of course the car aired out looks fantastic.

Some things I learned:
- Desired ride height with air suspension must be designed into your car. A given airspring has an installed height which is where it must be at ride height.
- The AirRide people and website are an incredible experience. They just plain do a great job.
- You can confirm by a read through their catalog/website that performance such as the type you are after for your car is what AirRide is all about.
- The engineering and quality of the AirRide products are excellent.
- The AirPod (self contained pre tested tank, ecu, solenoids) is a great product that saves time and provides a custom looking installation.

And I just read about a self contained ride height sensor, built into the Shockwave, a new AirRide product coming out. You can certainly count on this company to be innovative, stand behind their products and support their customers! Just my 2 cents!

[Roadbuster]

.

Some things I learned:
- Desired ride height with air suspension must be designed into your car. A given airspring has an installed height which is where it must be at ride height.


This is true for coil overs too! You can tune up and down a bit, but it you are running the shock outside of the manufacturer's recommended spec you are going to have issues.

Jon

[darren@ridetech]

Not trying to hijack but what about power. Can the air ride systems handle high horsepower?

Definitely. I have customers with 1500+ hp running our equipment. But don't think that you can just swap your coils for a set of air springs and head to the track. Suspensioion design, sway bars, control arms, adjustable shocks, spindles, brakes and tires are all key ingredients to designing a well handling car.

[ProTour69GTO]

I did my first AirRide install Spring '07 on a Falcon so I was new to air. It has been very rewarding and I am very happy with it. I went this route vs lowering coil springs to get a good dropped aired out look yet provide a nice street and highway drive. It does everything I wanted. Everyone who rides in the car is complimentary about the ride quality. And of course the car aired out looks fantastic.

Some things I learned:
- Desired ride height with air suspension must be designed into your car. A given airspring has an installed height which is where it must be at ride height.
- The AirRide people and website are an incredible experience. They just plain do a great job.
- You can confirm by a read through their catalog/website that performance such as the type you are after for your car is what AirRide is all about.
- The engineering and quality of the AirRide products are excellent.
- The AirPod (self contained pre tested tank, ecu, solenoids) is a great product that saves time and provides a custom looking installation.

And I just read about a self contained ride height sensor, built into the Shockwave, a new AirRide product coming out. You can certainly count on this company to be innovative, stand behind their products and support their customers! Just my 2 cents!

Your post got me thinking that is there a way to have two separate ride hieghts, one for normal driving and one for race/track?

edit After thinking some more after my post. Is there a couple inches of play in the system already that I dont know of?

[Roadbuster]

Your post got me thinking that is there a way to have two separate ride hieghts, one for normal driving and one for race/track?

edit After thinking some more after my post. Is there a couple inches of play in the system already that I dont know of?

I think there is a way to achieve this. Look at the spec sheet for your shocks. Here is one for shockwaves. (http://www.cachassisworks.com/Instructions/899-031-204.pdf)
Check out the spec for the VAS 3G2-280. The max ride length is 10.75 inches. This is the setup for the street offering the most compression. The minimum ride length is 10.23 inches. This is what you would run for the track. This sounds like you only have 0.5 inches of adjustment but with a 2:1 motion ratio of an A-arm (A-body) this doubles to one inch. So with the VAS 3G2-280 you would have an inch of ride height adjustability and stay in spec.

Note that the ride height adjustment is not the same as bump and compression travel.

Jon

[JRouche]

I think there is a way to achieve this. Look at the spec sheet for your shocks. Here is one for shockwaves. (http://www.cachassisworks.com/Instructions/899-031-204.pdf)
Check out the spec for the VAS 3G2-280. The max ride length is 10.75 inches. This is the setup for the street offering the most compression. The minimum ride length is 10.23 inches. This is what you would run for the track. This sounds like you only have 0.5 inches of adjustment but with a 2:1 motion ratio of an A-arm (A-body) this doubles to one inch. So with the VAS 3G2-280 you would have an inch of ride height adjustability and stay in spec.

Note that the ride height adjustment is not the same as bump and compression travel.

Jon

Hey Jon, thanks for the PDF. I didnt see that when I bought my shockwaves. The one I saw only gave min and max travel and one ride height. For example, the rears are a ride height of 14.56".

Ill have to look at my front SWs and see where they fit in with the PDF you gave. I think 1" of variation on the A-arms up front isnt too much. Not too far off of horizontal. I think I have the VAS 3 H2-280 for the front. Interesting to see if that lil amount of RH will change the performance. JR