Airride Tech Mopar products

[Travis B]

Looks like lots of new products for mopar guys....



https://www.pro-touring.com/

Darren or Tony-

Do you have any install pics? Does ART have a new project car that you guys tried this stuff on? What about pricing, is it comparable to the rest of the stuff?

We have a customer wanting to do a cuda, thought I would see what is out there suspension wise???

thanks

[syborg tt]

Okay this is exciting news as i see you may have a kit for one of my buddies cars which may soon be mine.

Any info on the cuda will be very helpful. I know you guy's were a great help on viper/charger that is being built at Comp Fab.

[rocketman]

is it a bolt in?? what years and body style are you actully doing?

[PTAddict]

From what I have seen, these kits are very well-engineered for a mostly bolt-in kit. The geometry is definitely compromised to simplify installation and packaging, though. If you're serious about maximizing track performance, you'd be better off looking at Lateral Dynamics.

There are a number of options now appearing for Mopars that are more handling oriented. This is great, IMO. Mopars are the next hot PT platform.

[kennyd]

do they sell a kit for a 49 massey ferguson ?

[darren@ridetech]

Well there will be one front kit that will cover the B & E bodies. It uses a 7000 series shockwave in place of the factory shock. This shockwave will not handle the weight of the entire car, it is used in conjunction with the torsion bar. For clearance we had to build an upper StrongArm, while we were at it we corrected the ball joint angle and added a bit of caster.

The rear AirBar is also all bolt-on, except for the upper bar axle tabs, they have to be welded. Here are a couple pics of a 73 Challenger that we did.
The last two pics are of the rear of a 69 Road Runner.

[darren@ridetech]

do they sell a kit for a 49 massey ferguson ?

Just depends....how much load capacity do you need? Does it have a 3 point hitch?

E body is the 70-74 Cuda & Challenger
B body is the Satellite, Road Runner, GTX, Belvedere, Super Bee, etc.

[kennyd]

looks like you did not " compromise geometry " on this . looks great we will sell one to our coustomer .

[Travis B]

Well there will be one front kit that will cover the B & E bodies. It uses a 7000 series shockwave in place of the factory shock. This Shockwave will not handle the weight of the entire car, it is used in conjunction with the torsion bar. For clearance we had to build an upper StrongArm, while we were at it we corrected the ball joint angle and added a bit of caster.

The rear AirBar is also all bolt-on, except for the upper bar axle tabs, they have to be welded. Here are a couple pics of a 73 Challenger that we did.
The last two pics are of the rear of a 69 Road Runner.

Darren-does it use the factory torsion bars? Are new ones available from you guys?

[darren@ridetech]

We just turned the adjuster down on the factory torsions. We do not have replacements.

[Travis B]

We just turned the adjuster down on the factory torsions. We do not have replacements.

thanks....are you going to have a test mule at the real street challenge????

[darren@ridetech]

Did anyone catch that new show on Spike, I think it is called Muscle Car TV? I have not seen it yet, but a couple customers have told me about it. They installed a front K-member from red top Speed Shop with a set of Shockwaves on Year Ones' Challenger.
Has anyone heard of these guys or know anything about this K member?
www.redtopspeedshop.com
I think they are going to aire the install of the rear AirBar this weekend but I'm not sure.

[PTAddict]

looks like you did not " compromise geometry " on this . looks great we will sell one to our coustomer .

The compromises in this design are quite obvious. That is no slam on ridetech or their product, as I will explain later, but it is true.

If you are trying to upgrade an early piece of Detroit iron to truly modern standards of handling, like you might get from a C5/C6 Vette, Viper, or even 4th gen Camaro or 05+ Mustang, you have to address a multitude of deficiencies in both the front and rear suspensions.

All of the 60s/early 70s platforms suffer to a greater or lesser degree from a combination of front suspension problems:
low roll center, dynamic roll center migration, excessive scrub radius, bump steer, insufficient camber gain, insufficient positive caster adjustment, deflection steer due to bushing deflection. A car with these deficiencies can still be made to turn fairly impressive results in standardized tests like the skidpad, but in the world of AutoX or road racing tracks, with constant transitions of braking, cornering, and acceleration, the car will feel less stable and predictable than a well-designed modern platform, and will be slower as a result. Unfortunately, bolt-on control arms and bushings can only help address the caster and bushing deflection issues; fixing the rest requires modifying spindle geometry, and designing new suspension around the new spindle - well beyond the scope of the AirRide kit.

Good solid axle rear suspension will have roll center as low as possible, roll center that moves with body rather than the axle, neutral roll steer or slight roll understeer, good lateral location with minimal deflection, some amount of anti-squat in the 50 to 100 % range, fairly stable instant center, and minimized unsprung weight. The surprising thing to many folks is that ordinary multi-leaf springs are at least decent on most of these parameters, if well-designed, with the biggest deficiency being unsprung weight. Spring wrap, leaf friction, and shackle deflection can all be addressed pretty easily with good design.

Looking at the AirBar kit, it will pretty clearly have lower unsprung weight, and of course will not have spring wrap issues. That's the good news. The bad news: the lower control arms use the stock pickup points and are therefore parallel in plan view. This means that the roll center will be located by the intersection point of the upper, angled arms, which are located above the rear axle in order to gain control arm length without cutting the car. This means that the AirBar will actually raise the roll center, and further, the roll center will now move with the axle rather than the body - both undesirable. As well, the upper links are still relatively short, and as a result instant center will move around more. The use of poly bushings on both ends of the control arms will lead to some binding, which might or might not be significant. All in all, this is not the kind of geometry change one would choose to make to optimize handling.

As I said, this is not a slam on AirRide. If I were given a set of engineering constraints that said, roughly, design a kit that will let our customers utilize air suspension on their old muscle cars, make it as simple as possible to install, avoid cutting or welding to the greatest degree possible, keep it relatively inexpensive, and still provide improved handling over stock, I don't think I could do a better job of design. The AirRide stuff is quite cleverly engineered from that perspective.

But if you genuinely want your old muscle car to handle like a modern sports car, you have to go further, in engineering, cost, and installation complexity. The reason I mentioned Lateral Dynamics is that they're the only outfit I know of right now designing rear and front solutions for Mopars that actually address all of the suspension issues mentioned above. All of the rest either seem to not be engineered per se, or are engineered to a different set of criteria.

[DonQuehotey]

From what I have seen, these kits are very well-engineered for a mostly bolt-in kit. The geometry is definitely compromised to simplify installation and packaging, though. If you're serious about maximizing track performance, you'd be better off looking at Lateral Dynamics.

There are a number of options now appearing for Mopars that are more handling oriented. This is great, IMO. Mopars are the next hot PT platform.

PT, did you buy one of these kits or mach up the dimensions and run it through a 4-link program to be able to detemine that the geometry has been "compromised for packaging"?

[PTAddict]

PT, did you buy one of these kits or mach up the dimensions and run it through a 4-link program to be able to detemine that the geometry has been "compromised for packaging"?

Nope, the compromises I mention above are readily apparent simply from looking at the design, and applying the simple graphical techniques needed for analyzing such a design. It is clear that, for instance, the upper arms mount above the axle centerline and are much shorter than the lowers, and that the lower arms are not angled inward toward the center of the car. These are clearly compromise choices from a geometry perspective. The exact parameters obviously can't be known without precise dimensions, but I think the generalizations I made above will be seen to be true by anyone who has studied these kinds of designs in the various texts by Adams, Puhn, Smith, Milliken, et al.

Once again, I'm not being critical of ridetech. I am in the process of installing a very similar suspension system in my wife's 55 Chevy, because I think it will work very well for what she wants in that application. It's just that you can't fool Father Newton, and it's not physically possible to have no compromises. This puts the onus on us as consumers to be as clear as possible in our goals, and educate ourselves as best as possible to make informed choices in reaching those goals.

[darren@ridetech]

Don,
I appreciate you getting my back but I am going to have to agree with PTAddict. ALL suspensions compromise something. There is not one suspension design out there that will satisfy all forms of performance (not just G-machines) and driveability. Then we have to throw a couple of other goals that we had in mind when designing the Air Bar kits: easy installation with minimal welding, and typically NO modifications to the car.
I think that these AirBar kits do a really good job of meeting these goals.

[Mean 69]

ALL suspensions compromise something. There is not one suspension design out there that will satisfy all forms of performance (not just G-machines) and driveability. Then we have to throw a couple of other goals that we had in mind when designing the Air Bar kits: easy installation with minimal welding, and typically NO modifications to the car.

Darren, I commend you for speaking candidly on this, there is no question that the setups you guys offer are super cool, and even have been shown to work well in a performance environment, beyond the expectations of many folks, myself being included big time. Few other suppliers of these setups will admit that there are weaknesses or compromises to their designs, and that is unfortunate. For the design requirements you stated, I think you guys nailed the execution really well.

I want to emphasize a point that Darren made, because it seems to be becoming a sore spot in debates, which too is unfortunate. Suspension systems are an exercise in compromise, period. Hopefully, the design compromises are informed (meaning the designers knew what they were giving up in order to accomplish some other aspect), but too often they are not. The thing that gets under my skin are the instances where folks will try to fluff off these compromises, whatever they may be, and try to mislead potential customers that there are no bad issues, or downsides, to a particular design. And no, I am not calling anyone out to the carpet at all, so please don't take this as an attack on any one person or company. I just strongly feel that when informing a potential customer of the design, it is critical to be open and honest, rather than to leave out important details, or be even more dishonest.

Anyway, Darren, my hat is off to you. Nicely done.
Mark

[DonQuehotey]

Darren & PT I am familiar with suspension geometry ... although I do appreciate the lesson. What I was getting at is just the way that it was said, it was almost insulting to a point... and for a person to say something like that and having never seen, much less been able to plot the dynamics of ... say that something has been compromised. I find that rather arrogant and funny to be quite honest. You say that there is a compromise in everything you do. Actually you are quite wrong. If you know to what level you are building your car and what you are building it to conform to, there is no compromise. If you are building a track only vehicle and you build a full tube chassis task specific..... one might say that you compromised the floor of the car and are now going to loose alot of creature comforts.... how in the heck is that a compromise? That is not what the car was built for? If you build the car for what you intend to use it for there is no compromise. Some of guys need to spend a little more time in asking the poster what it is they are really looking for their car to do before you tell someone that you are compromising somewhere. The only thing I can think of that is truly compromising is what ones person pocket book dictates the quality of materials being used.

[PTAddict]

I certainly didn't intend to insult either the hard working, honest vendors who build great products for this hobby, nor those of us busting our butts to make cool rides. But I see how it could be taken that way, and if I offended anyone, I apologize.

On one point I still differ, though. Some things you can tell about a suspension design just from looking at pictures of it, and I don't feel it's either arrogant or inappropriate to point those things out in a forum dedicated to suspension. I myself wish that someone had told me a few years ago, for instance, that bolting on those spindle extenders was a dumb idea because it would shorten my FVSA, increase side scrub, and make my car twitchy, even if they were a bit blunt about it.

[DonQuehotey]

Unfortunately knowledge is a tool that needs to be used wisely or it can be dangerous. That is one of the bad things about posting on the internet, being that most of us are novice writers at best... it is hard to convey emotion when you are the reader. and Darren... dont thank me for having your back because I dont.....and remember nothing is ever a compromise it should be an educated decision.