Spirited driving on airbags

[Performance nut]

I was talking to a mechanic this week about suspension mods and he brought up the possibility of an airbag suspension. Told him I'm not really into raising and lowering my car, looking more of an occasion auto-cross/road course suspension that I can manage as my DD the vast majority of the time. He said that I can not only tune this for racing but give me the ability to have a smooth ride the rest of the time and save some weight.

Ok, I'll bite. This is new to me, not really educated in the ways of the new airbag suspension technology out there. Is there an airbag suspension that is worthy to say FPP track handling package or any vendor performance package? I'm pretty picky about my suspension, I usually go stiffer than what most people are willing to put up with on the road (though is still safe to drive on less than perfectly flat surfaces) so I can get better handling in the turns.

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[apex15stangPP]

Well air suspension is great for anything. With a quality system you can have best of both worlds. Save some weight? No. You will have an air management system(tank,valves,compressor) those things add weight. With a quality suspension weather coilover or air you can get what you want and need out of them. It's all about your end goal, air is usually used for lowering the car when hardparking it, but can also be very successful on any spirted driving. With a coilover you adjust your ride height based on strut range and enjoy at current setting, until changed by you manually. Most higher end coilover and air systems will have either rebound or compression adjustment to fine tune your performance level. With either system I would look at RideTech, been around for 20 years and in all made in Jasper, IN. and comes with a 1,000,001 mile warranty.

 

[Meraki Autoworks]

If you're focused on auto cross , I would go coilovers for a bumpy but smooth ride, and great handling. I have coils on one car and bags on the other. I would rather track the car with coils. I love bags, they're awesome, but I prefer coilovers for track use.

Give us a holler for a price on any suspension parts. Coils, Bags, springs, etc..

-Josh

 

[Andrewg]

I'm going with the Airlift kit. Couldn't care less about stance or dropping the car for the hard parked look. I simply want on the fly adjustment and the ability to have the perfect ride height for daily driving and then be able to change settings with the press of a button and a turn of the shock damping knobs and be ready for the road course or drag strip. Raising up for high speed bumps or steep driveways with the press of a button will make my life so easy. I had Steeda coilovers on my previous mustang and while the ride was great for street and road course track I resigned myself to the fact that i'll never be a professional driver or even be competitive as I only manage 4 track days a year max. Having a high quality system like the Airlift kit provides better road course performance than some of the lower end coilover systems so should be perfect for what I need and lot better than the FRPP track package.

Check out this vid...
[ame="[MEDIA=youtube]7dQgT5g84ag[/MEDIA]"]

 

[Performance nut]

Well air suspension is great for anything. With a quality system you can have best of both worlds. Save some weight? No. You will have an air management system(tank,valves,compressor) those things add weight. With a quality suspension weather coilover or air you can get what you want and need out of them. It's all about your end goal, air is usually used for lowering the car when hardparking it, but can also be very successful on any spirted driving. With a coilover you adjust your ride height based on strut range and enjoy at current setting, until changed by you manually. Most higher end coilover and air systems will have either rebound or compression adjustment to fine tune your performance level. With either system I would look at RideTech, been around for 20 years and in all made in Jasper, IN. and comes with a 1,000,001 mile warranty.

That is exactly who I called. They recommended their coil overs as well. The weight thing made me scratch my head too, maybe he meant the actual suspension parts???

If you're focused on auto cross , I would go coilovers for a bumpy but smooth ride, and great handling. I have coils on one car and bags on the other. I would rather track the car with coils. I love bags, they're awesome, but I prefer coilovers for track use.

Give us a holler for a price on any suspension parts. Coils, Bags, springs, etc..

-Josh

That is the sort of thing I was looking for. No one really seems to have driven an airbag suspension on a road course... thank you for your input.


And I'll definitely keep you in mind when its project time

I'm going with the Airlift kit. Couldn't care less about stance or dropping the car for the hard parked look. I simply want on the fly adjustment and the ability to have the perfect ride height for daily driving and then be able to change settings with the press of a button and a turn of the shock damping knobs and be ready for the road course or drag strip. Raising up for high speed bumps or steep driveways with the press of a button will make my life so easy. I had Steeda coilovers on my previous mustang and while the ride was great for street and road course track I resigned myself to the fact that i'll never be a professional driver or even be competitive as I only manage 4 track days a year max. Having a high quality system like the Airlift kit provides better road course performance than some of the lower end coilover systems so should be perfect for what I need and lot better than the FRPP track package.

Check out this vid...

Ok, first off, you are the man. I looked everywhere for something like this.

Though one thing that the video said made me stop for a second. They stated that they made the corner weights the same as possible... this made me wonder how much different they made the coil over car. One of its benefits (at least to me) would be the reduction in weight. If they added weight so that you have same weight vehicles, whereas I can see the desire for apples to apples comparison, it seems a bit unfair. Though to their point, it wasn't to say "airbags are superior", it was to show that airbag technology has come along and isn't out of the performance game.

Gotta say, you have a valid point though. Number of times I'll see a track will likely be low as well, then again it may not. I do know it will reside on the road more than it will reside on a track.

 

[daltron]

Though one thing that the video said made me stop for a second. They stated that they made the corner weights the same as possible...

I didn't watch the video, but I assume what they meant is by changing the height on each wheel, not physically adding more weight.

 

[Rampant]

I didn't watch the video, but I assume what they meant is by changing the height on each wheel, not physically adding more weight.

I am pretty sure by corner-weighting, they adjusted the height for each corner to balance out the cross-weights. The weights weren't identical between the two, but they were equally balanced, thus trying to eliminate one possible variance between the two.

What that video (which was great, but still a marketing pieces) didn't talk about was the shock/strut setup. They could have softened the coilovers all the way down and firmed up the shocks on the coils and that might have accounted for the softer roll and weaker stats from the coils.

In either case, it did show that bags performed quite well during hard driving (at least in those tests). If you aren't racing, they should give all the performance you need.

 

[Andrewg]

Ok, first off, you are the man. I looked everywhere for something like this.

Though one thing that the video said made me stop for a second. They stated that they made the corner weights the same as possible... this made me wonder how much different they made the coil over car. One of its benefits (at least to me) would be the reduction in weight. If they added weight so that you have same weight vehicles, whereas I can see the desire for apples to apples comparison, it seems a bit unfair. Though to their point, it wasn't to say "airbags are superior", it was to show that airbag technology has come along and isn't out of the performance game.

Gotta say, you have a valid point though. Number of times I'll see a track will likely be low as well, then again it may not. I do know it will reside on the road more than it will reside on a track.

My pleasure sir. Glad it was useful. :cheers:

As Rampant and Daltron mentioned I believe the corner weighting was adding more pressure/height to different shocks to balance the car out. The adjust-ability sold it for me. I'll never be the 'best' on track but the performance I can get out of the bags will likely give me more than I need so I can focus on the driver mod and maximise the fun. The ability to dial in the settings on the fly as well as have a 'jack-of-all-trades' for street, track and drag strip makes all the difference.

 

[NickGoBlue]

Save some weight? No. You will have an air management system(tank,valves,compressor) those things add weight.

My Air Suspension dropped the weight of my car by 23lbs.

Although you are adding a tank and compressor with the management, removing 4 coil springs is a lot of weight.

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