Air Ride: Ride Ht vs Spring Rate

[ammoyer]

Hypothetically speaking. With an air ride system, how much can you adjust pressure to change spring rate without affecting ride height?



Thinking about the car that can get through a corner and be able to readily soften the rear spring rate some for some drag strip traction. Is this something that can be done without loosing ride height?

Thoughts and experiences are appreciated.

[exwestracer]

Any worthwhile change in spring rate across one end of the car will change ride height. Doesn't matter if it's an air chamber or coil spring. With a coil-over, you can change spring rate and then reset the ride height, but with an air spring, your rate and ride height adjustments are the same...

Let's say your air spring will hold 1000lb at 6" height at 100psi. As you increase pressure (spring rate) to, say, 120psi, you still have the same static load, so now the increased pressure is able to lift the height of the chassis.

If you had a shockwave type setup that incorporated an adjustable perch (like a coil-over), then you could stiffen the air spring and let the car back down by adjusting the perch. I don't know of any that are built this way, because for most applications, the adjustable perch would be redundant...