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Air bag suspension chat


KKtrips

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I use a 3 Gal air tank. It will only lift the front, then it needs to refill to lift the back. My car is pretty heavy tho with a V8 up front.

I have been looking at the idea of doing an engine driven compressor using an old ac pump but it is a little tricky as you need to set up an oiler. Refrigerant contains oil which lubricates the compressor. I use one 480cc compressor at the moment, I could go to two, but to be honest, I hate the noise and I am just going to throw a scuba tank in the boot, pull apart an old nitrogen regulator that I have and connect it into my existing tanks. This should give me about 50 full car lifts (apparently) before I need to refill the scuba tank.

My boot can probably fit 8-10 more bodies in it than yours tho, so Im not fighting for real estate. 

Have you looked into Ridetech shockwave struts? Im not sure if they make anything similar to your struts.

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i had a bagged truck for a few years

 

converted a stock ac pump, that turned into a electric engine brake pretty quick- not enough lube

ran a scuba tank for a while- that was a pain in the ass. ran out of air a couple of times

converted a york ac pump- that was good, fast, plenty of air

then i had to go to 2 viair 380s because no room with 1uz

 

from memory it had a 5 gal tank, from laid out to all up was enough for the pumps to start

 

trukpics001.jpg

Truck.jpg

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Cletus, Can you give me a bit more info on the York set up? How did you go about lubricating the pump?
 
Rookie- With the 3 Gal, I can get the car up off the ground with one lift but it will be pretty low, The 3 gal is pretty small, but perfect for what I wanted because it is tucked up above the fuel tank and it fits with mm to spare.
I dont know what pressure my tank is at, I haven't had a gauge set up on the tank.

I think the pressure sensor is 0-200 PSI so it wont be more than that.

I run an accuair VU4, they are really good systems. They include almost everything you need to bag a car, except gauges for each corner, which you will require for a cert here in NZ. I bought two dual needle gauges which I am yet to set up properly. (Im trying to hide them in the old glove box with the new stereo, I dont want them on show)

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Sweet as, I was just wondering about the pressure, as it will make quite a difference to the volume og air you cram unto the tank, but if you are running 200 psi then that is sweet/what I was thinking of running. Based on what you guys have said I will try a 2 gallon tank and see how I get on, worst comes to I will change it.

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I bought a tank from airride NZ - not sure on the size but it isn't huge. I guess if it is full then it will lift the car to ride height.

 

If you are prepared to wait, then you won't need a big tank.

 

I converted a york compressor by removing the head and blocking the vent to the crankcase. Then I drilled the crank filler bolt to provide a crankcase vent. Has worked OK for a few month. IIRC it might be easier to block the vent by removing the crank pulley? I ended up doing this anyway because the clutch bearing seized causing the compressor to stay on full-time which blew an air line.

 

My pressure switch it set around 150psi I think. The Accuair controller allows different settings for this but the standard one seems OK. The engine-driven compressor takes a couple of minutes to fill the tank I guess - the back comes up first (only about 30psi in the rear bags), and then the front rises slowly as the pressure increases. 

 

I didn't need to fit gauges, probably because the controller sets the ride heights.

 

There is a some pics of the compressor in my build thread.

 

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/43505-nominals-1964-mercury/

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Rookie here's my experience with the crown, it had a 5 gal tank and I would run it up to like 160psi, that was just enough to go up from full drop once. It had one decent sized Viair compressor and it took forever to pump up, you need minimum of 2 electric compressors and a well thought out housing for them, rubber mounted in a enclosure that has ventilation to minimize the god awful noise. Crown weighed maybe 1600-1700kg and needed like 90-100psi in the front and 40-60 in the back at ride height. One compressor and a 1 gal tank sounds like the worst thing ever, you will need to go engine driven with a tank that small.

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Dive tank sounds heavy.

 

If you want to go up reasonably quickly then to me it seems you just get a 5 gal tank minimum and 2 electric compressors (will still take some time to fill the tank again). That should give you one quick up and then maybe a 5-10min recovery.

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alloy dive tank is 14kg empty, thats 80cuft diver guy capacity, or 3gal 'water capacity' ie normal people volume.

 

not sure on mathsing 3 gal at 3000 psi but you might get a couple fast ups out of it before you're back on pleb spec recovery time.

two batteries will last ages though, just sayin. i didnt use it fuck all while juiced, but i charged the coon's batteries twice during that time.

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 there will be times when you want to do that twice in a row, with 8 people in the car, in one carpark. nope, no one wants to hop, you aren't required to run 200psi to the bags if you have a dive tank.

my guess is it'll appear to be a better idea to inch the dimensions of a conventional system up until it can supply just enough to do the job, but would you build a hot rod like that?

and for the sake of argument on a friday avo cos we love this shit, designing a system to work with an internationally standardised, modular pressure vessel seems to me less stopgap than using one designed with appearance and boot space more in mind.

i dont even know what car we're talking about.

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manu has a point in that a "3 gal" dive tank or similar at 3000psi has the equivalent of "45 gal" of air in it  your problem is getting a pump that will do those much higher pressures, plus a reliable pressure reducing valve and saftey valve such that you dont blow the downstream stuff to bits. also downside is that high pressure compressor will no doubt take some time to fill the tank unless it is half the size of the car.

 

my guess is in most cases putting a second pump and a bigger tank at 200psi is simpler and easier because you can just buy the stuff and know it works and requires less one off engineering. plus finding a high pressure air compressor that is not a big one for filling dive bottles is going to be hard.

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OK I get you, yea I love these yarns. Its still a stop gap right? who can charge your tank to 3000psi? I dont think your normal valves are going to work on 3000psi so you need to bleed it down to lower pressure then use it? 

 

The whole scope of the yarn is rookie is trying to do something with the minimum space possible (hence the 1gal tank) and a dive tank is massive, seems to fly in the face of the original question. Seriously I got by fine with a 5 gal tank and one compressor, but the compressor ran for wayyyyy too long and was fucking annoying. (like stab your eyes out annoying). I figure as I said above that a 5 gal with 2 compressors in a noise isolating enclosure will see you right in about every scenario (I was talking full up from full low, if you need to do this more than once in 5 min you are being a knob, if you are already up and just need to go up a little more this takes much less air) . The only other alternative is to get a engine driven york that has a decent CFM output to make up for a lack of storage.

 

Also seriously 200psi on those normal air-bag compressors is ridiculous, its like exponential time/noise torture once they get over 140-160psi. I have one downstairs, I bet it would take about 20 years to fill a 5gal tank to 200psi.

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Cletus, Can you give me a bit more info on the York set up? How did you go about lubricating the pump?

 

 

 

 

Yorks run their own oil sump that lubricates the piston, if the rings are still good should have minimal oil going into the air lines, there are also mods that can be done to them that reduce it even further.

 

I have never actually used one in an airbagged car but have bought and sold maybe 30-40 of them over the years to minitruckers and offroading people.

 

They are quite cool wee things, can pump like 18CFM at redline and have an electric clutch so can disengage them when not in use.

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