peabe

anyone got any? we've heard all/most of the good, lets hear the bad side of bags. dont get me wrong i dig them and want them, but i wanna hear some of the bad things that come with air susp.

RTon20s

Well, I won't let it be said that I don't share the bad with the good.

I will share two quick instances of two different friends trucks.

The first blew a line on the main drag here in town when he was cruising and could not lift his truck back up. His broken down truck backed up traffic for over a 1/2 hour. Luckily the CHP was cool about it, and let us (about 8-10 guys) get the truck up and out of the road. He ended up with a dented door because of the jack.

When he called the guy who installed his bags (a "professional shop") the guy knew right away where he had blown a line. Turns out, he knew he had routed an airline too close to the exhaust manifold!

The second guy was my old room mate. He did all of his own work on his truck with one exception. He was using the same professional installers shop to work on his truck and allowed the pro to do some of the welding on the link bar tabs. The suspension design was poor to begin with (triangulated 4 link with top bars backward) and the pro did some cold welds on the axle. There was no penetration!

Needless to say, the welds eventually gave way. Fortunately, the guys 4 year old son wasn't in the truck. Unfortunately, he was on the freeway and almost loss control. The link was fixed, but we couldn't convince the truck owner to use a better suspension design. He was (is) planning on back-halving the truck and installing a whole new link. He didn't want to have to "do it twice."

So like I have said a thousand times before. It all comes down to quality. Quality of the design, quality of the parts, and quality of the install.

SmartAss

Never had a problem to complain about except....

PTC fittings horrible..... hit a huge bump and compressed past the ptc fitting psi and boom out flys the line and im dragging ___ on the highway ging 60. Fixed by only using brfass compression fittings never had the problem again.

and...

Valves freezing... solution Put valves inside car or, put stock suspension on during winter bad combo, winter weather and airride.

Other then that nother bad,. Alot of fun...

Had 5 bagged cars now

peabe

i definitely wanna go with a quality set up. so far in mind as far as the main parts go, im planning on using...

-2 400c viair compressors (quicker fill and incase one breaks down. also, how bad would it be to mount 2 on the inside. i dont wanna deal with it on the outside cause i live in chicago and theres alot of snow and salt.)

-FBI rear setup
-easy street front set up

-as far as valves im thinking GC Extreme valves, any better recommendation? im hoping mufflers make a big difference cause i plan on mounting pretty much everything inside.
-fittings, i would like to know the best thing for that
-what about air line? i wanted to go 1/4". is a 1/4" line set up bad? i wanted to go with a 1/4" setup so it rises and drops real slow.

and i wanted to go with a digital controller, any recommendations on that?

Spider13

Besides dealing with Airlift in general.

Blowing one of easystreet's stupid sleeve bags at 70 was a fun ride. But the joy of a solid axle is atleast u can limp home with only one rear bag.

TRDBox

im using SMC 3/8 valves

from reading on here 1 400 should do it

dakota digital is very nice but costly

the Odyssey series I is what im going to run but its just a gauge
the controller is like 800 but nice

Lance

I think 1/4 valves and 3/8 airline would be a better option

hamads

blew a bag b/c i was running airlifts 1st gen cups on my s10..the cups were made to float so one day after hitting a huge pothole my bag decided to ____ and rub against the pocket that i cut a lot out of.. i also had a compression fitting go bad for some odd reason, it was off my tank so when the fitting blew the line out my system went bye bye i still back compression fittings 100% though, i think i forgot to tighten the fitting down so the sleeve would compress hehe...as for PTC i hate it even if its brass..

if you want it to drop slow you can go with 1/4" lines..or just run bushings or those airflow controllers sold on suicidedoors or candospecialties, with those u can control the speed and on my friends taco it sounded pretty cool too

elegancexb

universal airstrut bags sucks.............i have 2 blown already don't ever get those!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

anychance any one selling easy street front struts??????????/
or anyone know who

RTon20s

To peabe...

The GC valves will probably be a bit too much for what you are wanting. I know you probably don't want to spend much, but for the speed you are wanting I would recommend the Air Ride Technologies valves. They are nice and slow, and probably the most reliable valves on the market. If the cost is too great, I would go with a set of SMC valves. Mounting everything inside of the car will help slow you down some as well.

You can also run 1/4" line to slow you down, but based on my experience I would go ahead and install 3/8". After the initial install, if you need to slow either the lift of dump speed you can install flow controllers. Just remember, it is a whole lot easier and cheaper to slow a system down after you do an install than it is to speed it up.

As far as a digital controller, the nicest systems hands down are from Dakota Digital as someone else mentioned. You can get one of their Odyssey II or Solarix series digital controller/gauges for about $400 not including the pressure sending units. The sending units are an additional $25-35 each. These controllers are integrated into a single 2" diameter digital gauge. This is probably the cleanest, most discreet option commercially available today.

If you want to go digital and save money, go with the Airlift/Easystreet digital controller. The complete kit can be had from http://store.gaugemagazine.com. If you use the discount code "frmember" you can probably get the complete system shipped for under $470. Not a lot of cost savings over the Dakota Digital stuff, but it might save you a little coin.

And to elegancexb...

The cheapest place to buy the Airlift struts new is probably the Gauge store I linked to above. Other than that I would just suggest using a search in these forums and on ebay to find someone selling an old set.

MyWhiteBox

i'm sorry but i don't think airbags are that good

RTon20s

OK... and I don't think bananas are that good.

What is your point? Your post is absolutely useless and meaningless in this thread.

Unless you have a constructive comment to make, keep mindless drivel to yourself.

BrianxB

bwahahhahahaha!

peabe

thanks for the contribution to the topic.

Carlitos

yo peabe its me carlos the guy with the grey box wit the fender bender.....anywho why dont u ask JDMJIM about his airbags?? he is from joliet he was in some meets before i came to this meets..but yea i cant afford bags so i will just dream on.....

06SCIONXA

well if you decide to bag it then i might be of some help to you. i have two front strut bags almost brand new i took off of my last car. i paid $400 for them at wholesale price (retail is $600) and i am willing to sell them for $300 + shipping. if you or anyone else is interested in them then here is my number (901)-336-8974 ask for trey. thanks.

peabe

i always talk to jim air and other things. im just asking if anybody has had any really bad experiences with it. hehe

rebelMan

glad to see that you're thinking of goin with air man, it will complement the wheels nicely

You ever read thru my thread man? It's long but has a lot of answers to questions i asked RTon and others. The link is in my sig.

I hear that SMC makes good valves and i bought 2 of them, 3/8" size last week (for the rear, for a temporary install for Scion Exposed 2.0 next weekend, upgrading to 4 next month or so ... maybe). I'm also going to run 3/8" line. I hear that 1/2" is really fast and i think i can see that in a couple of videos of seen of xB's with 1/2" (or so they say). You can always get flow controllers for your fill valves and controllers for your dump valves.

Also if you can spend the extra money get brass compression fittings. I heard some people say they haven't had any problems with the PTC fittings but other have (SmartAss up there^^) .. i have never heard anything bad about comp. fittings and there shouldn't be based on the price of those damn things >_<;

Here is a flow controller for your fill valves (for w/e size u go with):

http://suicidedoors.com/AirManagemen...llControls.php

And dump controllers:

http://suicidedoors.com/AirManagemen...mpControls.php

The fill controllers even have check valves. I'm doing a basic install for now to see what i like and don't like, i can always change or add on stuff later (digital stuff, flow controllers, etc.)


oh btw, i hope i don't have any "horror" stories, i'm gonna carry my rear springs around with me for awhile until i know it's safe to only carry extra fittings and line etc.

crayonBOX

my two bad incidents:

On my way to see the dealer, i think on the first day i finshed and was driving around, i blew the rear right line (between the valve and the bag) - learned that i routed the line close enough to the exhaust pipe (aftermarket JIC exhaust), so every time i dropped it after driving, it would burn a bit more into the line, till it finally blew. (5 mi from home, stock rear shocks, so i limpedhome)

the other was going to a meet in roseville, pulled into the dealerhship (it was like 100 degrees that day) and as i went over the speedbump, it blew on my way over it, almost denting my exhaust... that was the bag this time (1st gen airlift sleeve bags) but they replaced em for me (warranty) and then ive never had a problem since! took it to the snow, freezing conditions, got stuck and had to get my friend to tow me off a snowbank, and stil good.

PTC fittings do suck, but i cant afford to change them all. they leak a bit, so that's kinda annoying.

As for a slow up and down peabe - im making VIP air switch panels, so you have BOTH options, i'm running 3/8th valves w/1/2" line - So fast up and down, but my Airrunner paddle switches allow me adjustment, as well as smooth raising and lowering for when i have 'sensitive' passengers

PM me if you wanna know more

rebelMan

so you can just use switchs to adjust the air flow? PM me about that if u don't mind, want to know for future reference