patman

iTrader: (3)

Does anyone know if this is available for an FC? (im pretty sure its not)
More importantly, can anyone explain a typical air strut setup to me well enough for me to know if i can fabricate one?

I know people are gonna yell rice at me, and frankly i dont care, but heres my motivation anyway:
I have a TII with the fxdesigns bodykit on it (fiberglass). It sticks out far in the front and is very low. I live in west virginia. the roads here suck ***. I need a way to get good suspension performance without lowering my car at all. If i can make an air strut setup, i can raise my car for the shitty roads and drop it down on good roads to where its nice and snug for good handling. And to tell you the truth, while it isnt my main motivation, air suspension really is pretty cool.

thanks
pat

SleeperRX7

iTrader: (2)

That is a decent reason I guess for wanting air suspension, But like you said "Rice!" And Air suspensions don't give you any good handling. Why not just get adjustable coiloveres, so you can set the height. Will probably save you some money too.

patman

iTrader: (3)

because then i gotta get out of my car and wedge myself in there to adjust the spring collet, right? as far as i knew, the easy adjustment on coilovers is the damping/stiffness ****, which doesnt change the height.

I know i could just get stiffer springs, but the smallest drop ive found on good quality springs is .8 inches, and i dunno if i can afford another inch lower, i already drag sometimes.

pat

Crusader_9x

if you choose air cylinders then the ride will be really stiff! the only problem is making sure they can hold the wieght. i hear there only good for several hundred pounds, maybe 700 or 800. if you find out that they will be able to hold it then your gonna need, air line, tanks, valves, fittings, compressors, and so on. if you want more detailed info let me know. all of my frineds got trucks on air. i have always thought of putting an rx7 on air.

rotoboy661

If U Wanna Bag It Get A Truck

patman

iTrader: (3)

yeah shoot me some details crusader. I'd heard of air cylinders, but dont know much about them. When you say really stiff, do you mean in a good way, or are they unresponsive?

800 lbs of weight or max compression? 800 lbs per corner weight would work for a 7, but the compressive force when you hit a bump would be many times that.


my half-baked idea is to cut the top and bottom of a set of stock struts and fab the irbags or cylinders or whatever in there....

pat

Crusader_9x

When you talk about air supsendion then most of the time people are talking about air bags. An air bag is just a big rubber bag that holds air and is made to expand in one direction, up. since it is made of rubber it expands and contracts and moves around and all sorts of stuff making for a loose and bouncy ride. Where as when you talk about an air cylinder it works the same way an hydralic cylinder does. It is made of metal and has two chambers that holds air. That way you can actually suck a wheel up off the ground if you wanted, but that requires either more of or a certian type of valves. An air cylinder comes in two sizes that i know of, 3 inch and 4 inch diameter.

When i say stiff i mean there are two chambers about 3 or 4 inches in diameter about 4 to 8 inches tall that is full of air. The air cylinder works just like a hydralic cylinder, just bigger and made for air. The air thats in there is around 150 psi or so depending on what kinda compressor(s) you have. How stiff the ride is all depends on what psi you got/run and how much it actually compressess when your going down the road and how much more the air wants to compress. I have never rode in a car that has cylinders so i cant tell you one way or the other for how stiff, but i have heard that they are stiff enough to make a car handle good. At least that is what all my friends tell me to try to get me to put cylinders on something lol.

Im sure that they take into account compression from bumbs and stuff. So i would think that the wieght rating is recomended max corner wieght. Worse comes to worse you could use whats called a strut bag. Now the strut bag wont be able to suck the wheel up off the ground and give a stiff ride but you would be able to raise and lower your car like you wanted. The strut bag that im talking about is an air bag with mounts on the top and bottom that are long and skinny like a shock/strut. All together they look like a shock or strut model of metalcut in half with a bag in the middle.

I would recomend a cylinder for the better handling car. Also there is something called an accumulator that you can get for a car with cylinders that makes it ride better, buy probably makes it handle worse. I think all an accumulator is, is a big tank connected to the cylinder that allows the air to compress when going over a bump so that it gives. The more volume of air the more it will compress, i think.

Anyway mounts should be fairly easy to make. I can almost guarantee you no one makes any for our cars. Once you get that figured out you need to get some air line to connect all the tanks, cylinders, valves, and compressors. I recomend the dot approved truck line that you can find at a Big rig/tractor trailer store. go ahead and buy like 100 feet of like 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch line.

Now your gonna need to figure out what compressor(s) you want to run. By far the most popular and easiest way is the classic electric compressors. If you do this route then i highley recomend a bigger alternator. These things draw more amps than a electric fan does. It all depends upon how much your gonna play with it. If your gonna play with it alot then i recomend going enginge driven which could be more or less money depending on how many electric compressors you were planning on runnin. The advantge to the enginge driven is it puts out alot more air and at alot higher psi. For example the electric compressors put out anywhere form 1 to 2 cfm at 100psi. The enginge driven puts out 9 cfm at 100 psi at idle. The faster you rev the motor the more air gets put out.

When you decide there get valves. If you decide to get cylinders then you gonna need 4 3 way valves or 16 two way valves(if you wanna suck the wheels off the ground and pressurize both sides of the cylinder, not required but recomended.). If ytou can find some big/nice 3 ways then get those but thats gonna be hard to do. So your probably going to be getting alot of 2 way valves. If you get 1/2 inch valves then get 5/8 line. If you get 3/8 valves then get 1/2 inch line.

look up all this info that i have posted and when you figure that out let me know and ill pst more i gotta go now.

by the way these people are expensive. http://www.airride.com/ but its a site to look at. http://www.suicidedoors.com/ this one is alot better and highly recomended but is made more for s-10s