Air ride question's .....need a lesson on it.

[PORTnPOLISH]

Okay, I want to put bags on the back of the luv. I found a Guy who needs to get a brand new 4 link for a s10 out of his shop and is going to sell it to me for 150 bucks it just needs a panard bar made.
My question is how do I choose the right airbags? I found some I. All sorts of price ranges with different specs but I don't know what the heck they mean.
Next question is what are my air compressor options? I have a cool old air compressor that is belt driven by a electric motor. Its about 35 gallons if I had to guess but I don't know any other specs on it. It looks cool and finding a 12v motor wont be hard to do but I don't really know the in depth of air ride. And surprisingly a lot of the stuff I found on the net isn't a ton of help or I got tired of reading through gangsta talk trying to find info.

 

[Motorhead]

The general rule of thumb with airbags is the bigger, the better. You want to get the biggest airbag that you can fit down there. A large diamater airbag means less air pressure to lift the truck which means a smoother ride.

I don't know much about compressors. A shop compressor will definately be too big. You could use a single 12v airbag compressor (Viair and similar) along with a 5-10 gallon capacity tank and you'll have plenty of air supply.

 

[Sam_Fear]

I went with Slam Specialties air bags - the reason is they don't bulge out when aired up and they have internal bump stops so it won't trash the bag to air them all out. If things are tight under there it's a good way to go. Like MH said, the bigger the better. I learned after I put my system together that 1/4" line would have been enough - that makes all the valves and fitting and such cheaper also. You only need a 200psi bag as you'll only be putting it up to 40-60psi anyhow, and 8" diameter will give a lot better ride.

As for a tank - a 35gal tank is pretty big. 10gal is a great size for a 4bag system. For just rear bags, 5gal would do fine. Front bags need more psi for the same lift. Unless you can find a used Viar, they ain't cheap. About $200 for a lower end one.

Suicide Doors has a good selection of quality merchandise, and is where I wound up buying much of my system from, but every other time I dealt with them, I wanted to punch the rep through the phone by the time I was done. That said, here is their website: http://qualityairride.com/catalog/air-management/compressors

 

[BigIrish]

Another thing to consider is nitrogen instead of, or in addition to a compressor. I got tired of waiting for the compressor, so I added a nitrogen tank & regulator to give it constant pressure. You can play with it and hop it around contantly for as long as your tank holds out. Then when it runs out, you have the compressor as backup.

If you have a 1/2 hp compressor or 2 1/4 hp compressors, which is really the minimum for a decent 4-bag system, you also need a 100 amp alternator. Stock alt won't keep up with that load.

All around best option is an engine-driven compressor (EDC). Expensive but pump huge amounts of air.

 

[PORTnPOLISH]

Yeah I thought of just using nitrogen as well. So the bigger the bag the better the ride...thats good to know. I just liked the old compressor for car shows but It may make more sense to just run a seperate one.

 

[King Herald]

You can use a bigger air-tank, instead of plumbing nitrogen in, with the attendant hassles of regulators and 2000psi gas bottle in your ride.

Then you won't need a big compressor and bigger alternator.

 

[burnin#2]

ive heard of guys using a old A/C compressor driven off of the engine to supply air to their system, now i forgot where i saw it, a thread...somewhere.... but they also talked about what A/C pump was better suited to run as a air pump over lesser quality pumps. the only thing i heard is that you just gotta re oil it internally from time to time ( i would think you could search it and find out more) but i would think that some of the early A/C pumps would be built with more durability. perhaps one from an older corwn vic or lincoln, and if the pump craps out in the future just go to a junk yard and grab another one. then just run a pressure cut out switch to the electric clutch.
im running bags on my rat, but im also running a cummins, so i found a engine driven compressor from a big rig to run my setup... no electricity nessisary

 

[sgtpontiac]

Its the old York type compressor

ive heard of guys using a old A/C compressor driven off of the engine to supply air to their system, now i forgot where i saw it, a thread...somewhere.... but they also talked about what A/C pump was better suited to run as a air pump over lesser quality pumps. the only thing i heard is that you just gotta re oil it internally from time to time ( i would think you could search it and find out more) but i would think that some of the early A/C pumps would be built with more durability. perhaps one from an older corwn vic or lincoln, and if the pump craps out in the future just go to a junk yard and grab another one. then just run a pressure cut out switch to the electric clutch.
im running bags on my rat, but im also running a cummins, so i found a engine driven compressor from a big rig to run my setup... no electricity nessisary

the ones they used on Fords with the twist valves on top of the compressor head... I understand these are used on Off Road vehicles for supplying air for air tools and reinflating tires.... if I remember my a/c stuff they can put out about 300lbs of pressure on the high side or more...you could even hook up a switch to kill the compressor clutch when not needed...

 

[PORTnPOLISH]

hmmmm my 307 does have a AC compressor on it...I did one of these for my friends off road truck. Any one will work really...but the Ford ones are better.

 

[deiselrodder]

The only compressors good at doing this are York style ac compressors. I installed one on a 95 Chevy crew cab dually with 2 ten gallon tanks under the bed and it filled them within 3 minutes and just used regular ac pressure switches to turn it on and off at certain pressures. That one was plumbed with 1/2 inch line and solenoids.

 

[King Herald]

These air-con compressors need lubrication though. Normally it is in the refirgerant, but wtih straight air they run dry and wear out real quick.

 

[Sam_Fear]

The Yorks have a internal oil resevoir and don't rely on the freon for lube.

 

[sneakysnake]

The ones that look like this