Cool ride by Air Ride

[Kenneth]

I got a Cool Ride set on my 66 Chevelle, any chance i can make a g-machine with this set.. ?

[Chevy350]

Hei Kenneth, jeg må jo følge med litt her (Har jeg først hoppa uti søla, får jeg tørke den av selv...)

You might want to take a look at this thread;
https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1793

It's probably ok on a normally streetdriven car, but for "race-use" it's a bit different. That's the way I interpret that thread anyway. I'm sure someone with greater knowledge will jump in anytime soon and answer your question!

Christian

[Tony@AirRideTech]

Christian,
Actually it is perfectly suited for track as well. That is what our main premise was to prove when we held our StreetChallenge track day. It was to bring the performance and tuning ability benifits to light to the media and to let them have an accurate comparison between steel springs and air suspension.

Tony....

[Chevy350]

I was hoping you might explain something for me;

I have a little problem with understanding the "adjustable" part of the airbags. To me, the image of two different springs at the SAME compressed hight (for example 150lb/in and 200lb/in @10" compressed), where one will be stiffer than the other.
Now with the airbags; the volume/area inside the bags where the airpressure (as a piston in a cylinder) excerts force to hold the car at a given level (for ex. the same 10" as a spring), is constant, and the variable is the airpressure. How can you make the air susspension firmer (as in higher springrate at the same given height) by adding pressure, WITHOUT just raising the car, at the "fixed" springrate? (limitations in the bags?) In simple terms, what am I missing here?

How about the effects of different volumes and airpressures? (large volume/low pressure, vs small volume/high pressure) As both can lift a certain weight (excert the same given force between the rear axle/frame). What about linear/progressive rate and bags? Dynamics compared to a steel spring? The physics/forces of this I can easily understand, but I'm sure there's something I'm missing here... I'm missing a variable or two. Or maybe getting it all wrong, I have been before I guess.

I truly do appologize for my "strange" english, but I do not have english as my native language. I hope I managed to explain it in a way you can understand, as I am a student at a technical school (one step down from engineer) here in Norway, but apparently not in english.
Thank you in advance!

Regards,

[TonyL]

good questions christian, we've been waiting for the answer to it for a long time now.

let me see if I can paraphrase your question.

how does the ride get "stiffer" without raising the car to dangerous roll heights? or am i not understanding how air ride works?

[slownova]

i will say this. i have global west upper and lower control arms and B-body spindles on my chevelle. the air-ride shockwave is way nicer then the QA-1 i had in there before....

[MuscleRodz]

I have had the same question in my head for a while now. How do you tune "spring rates" (air pressure) without changing ride height?

Mike

[TonyL]

the air-ride shockwave is way nicer then the QA-1 i had in there before....
Reply With Quote

no question shockwaves will ride nicer than coilovers. But how is the "firmer, race setup" setting gained without turning my car into a monster truck?

why is it that noone ever answers this question?

[zbugger]

Tony, I think this may have to do more with shock setting than air pressure setting. I don't know though.

[Tony@AirRideTech]

Ok....... here you guys go.... I tried explaining this in my last post but I may not have touched on it enough to make it comprehendable.
You guys are thinking right, if you make large pressure changes you will see a changes in ride height. Now most of the changes you are going to be doing from say a typical ride height to firm it up for a firmer feel is only going to be a matter of say 3-4psi either direction from your target ride height PSI. This will cause significant enough of change in your spring rate without aesthetically changing the height. Now if you get out of the vehicle and made tight accurate measurements, you may note that the ride height change within an 1/8 to 1/4". The real key in this choosing the correct airspring for the application. Say for example if we choose too large an airspring; you would notice significant ride height changes to very low PSI changes. But when you choose the appropriate airspring for the application you will typically find that you will be running the airspring at around 80-90% capacity at ride height. This will give you much finer tuning because we are in the upper ranges of the which requires larger percentage of volume change to effectivly change ride height.
If you think about static steel springs and think about how a small spring rate change like say 25-50lbs actually does, I think that will help you understand how we can make those changes without altering ride height.
On another note, you guys also have it correct by making shock valving changes. We have found on alot of vehicles that by not even changing ride height pressures but by making valving changes in the shocks that we can go from "highway to LeMans" with a couple of clicks. That is where the advantages of a progressive spring rate comes in.
To answer the linear spring rate question....... depending on what you are setting up the answer is yes... There are some airsprings that we use in our arsenal that do have a more linear action than they do progressive, but due to the natural compression of an airspring, they are all progressive. Some are just much less than others.

These are all great questions guys........ keep em coming........

[MuscleRodz]

So what you are effectively doing is using a bag slightly smaller than you would normally choose and blowing up near full capacity where greater pressure changes will have less effect on ride height? How does that work in relation to shock travel?

Mike

[wally8]

Tony,

Do you have any graphs of the spring rate and how it responds to pressure and loads? I'm curious how progressive it is and what sort of granularity there is for predictable changes.


Wally

[Tony@AirRideTech]

Mike...... you kinda get the idea but is what it boils down to is actually choosing the right airspring the first time around. I am not sure I am following you on the shock travel question.

Wally..... Yes... and that information is actually available through Firestone as well where they can provide you dynamic spring rate charts for each airspring at a given PSI.

[MuscleRodz]

How is the bag attached to the shock at the top? If the bag was completely inflated would the shock also be fully extended, or is the bag height limited and the shock still has travel left? I too would also be interested in the spring rate conversion charts.

Mike

[zbugger]

So, if you were to compare a airbag to a linear spring, would it be similar to comparing a linear spring to a more current progressive rate coil spring? I'd think so. Also, wouldn't a smaller bag mean a larger difference with a couple pounds pressure difference? I'd think that a larger bag would be able to contain the air better, and that slightly more pressure would have slightly less effect because of it. Maybe I'm not thinking right, but a smaller chamber should have a bigger change than a larger chamber. I think I'm understanding what you're saying though. I just have to be able to see it to be able to understand it better.

[USAZR1]

Christian,
Actually it is perfectly suited for track as well. That is what our main premise was to prove when we held our StreetChallenge track day. It was to bring the performance and tuning ability benifits to light to the media and to let them have an accurate comparison between steel springs and air suspension.
Tony....

Tony,I'm very interested in swapping out my QA1/Strange Eng. coilovers for a performance air ride system on my 69 El Camino. Can you post an email address and phone number I can reach you at?
My email address is [email protected]
Thank you,

[slownova]

Tony,I'm very interested in swapping out my QA1/Strange Eng. coilovers for a performance air ride system on my 69 El Camino. Can you post an email address and phone number I can reach you at?
My email address is [email protected]
Thank you,

do it! and don't look back!

[Chevy350]

Tony, just guessing - how many of the different air suspension kits out there today, are WELL suited to use on the track? I have the impression that many kits are "general use" kits for those who just want ride height adjustability. From what you stated, the airsprings, as steel springs, must be correctly chosen/matched to the vehicle/intended use? How does this work for Kenneth and his (long forgotten) question in the start of this thread? It all depends on the bags, and the car, that it's the correct kit for the application?

Thank you very much for the previous great answers by the way!

[Tony@AirRideTech]

Muscle Rods, On the Cool-Ride kit like we are talking about here, the shock is remote mounted to the backside of the control arm. So it goes through its standard range of motion just like it did when it was mounted through the coil spring. I got a feeling you are thinking of our Shockwave. The Shockwave's are a modular unit like a coil-over. It also attaches like like a coil over and the shock goes through its normal range of motion because the airspring is essentially captured in between the endplates which are an integral component of the shock. I will see about coming up with some dynamic charts for you to look at. Keep in mind, when you read these they will generally show "X" amount of pounds of vertical static load at "X" amount of PSI. There are already some of these listings rated at 100 PSI in our on-line catalog.

Zbugger,
Not really...... depending on the motion ratio you are running them at it will only be slightly more progressive than a linear steel spring. Regarding the smaller airspring question... no, I know it seems like it should be like what you are saying but it is the opposite. If you go with too large of airspring, small psi changes make significant spring rate changes. In other words you have more room for error when you are running higher percentage of airspring capacity. I think you are getting it to, just dont overthink it. That is easy to do with the implementation of airsprings.

USAZR1...... My e-mail address is [email protected] and our number here at the shop is 812-482-2932. To get you up to speed we have a bitchin A-body kit that comes with Shockwaves in the front with new tubular upper and lower control arms and new trailing arms out back.........

[Tony@AirRideTech]

Tony, just guessing - how many of the different air suspension kits out there today, are WELL suited to use on the track? I have the impression that many kits are "general use" kits for those who just want ride height adjustability. From what you stated, the airsprings, as steel springs, must be correctly chosen/matched to the vehicle/intended use? How does this work for Kenneth and his (long forgotten) question in the start of this thread? It all depends on the bags, and the car, that it's the correct kit for the application?

Thank you very much for the previous great answers by the way!

That is a good question and there is no way to appropriately answer that question without sounding like your average 1970's used car salesman. You are right though.... there are alot of other systems out there that are not designed to optimize the usage of airsprings but are basically installed to make the car go up and down. Here at AirRide,all of our systems down to our one ton kits are designed to improve the ride quality and the handling... all the way down to our one ton HD systems. in fact this year we have hopes of pushing one of our tow pigs around a closed coarse...... To answer your other question.... yes.... its just like you do not want to go to a wrecking yard and yank a spring out of a 77 1-ton ford and stick it in your first gen Camaro.