so a car that is laying on the ground is "for pussies" but a car that can't slide a 1/2" case between it is cool? a 1/4" is hardly gonna be noticable. i'd also like to see the look on your friends face when he encounters a speedbump/pothole/any other obstacle. so, go suck your righteous self off, if your not gonna help the situation, ass.
after everything is said and done give air ride technologys or fat man fabrications a call they can be very helpfull.
When I built my set up I used ball valves that control the air pressure and air release for all four corners .That way I can put the air pressure that I need in the front verses the rear .What I am trying to say is isolate the front to see what it is doing . I used to not like bags but I love the damn things in the right application, now .People are so hard headed they do not like change. It is called progress .Flat head, rocket motor, Hemi,y block,350 chevy, blowers, bias ply ,radials ,and so on. one came after the next .Hot-rods are about taking the best product to make your car better .Good luck with your problem
bboppkat when all the air is out of the front how tall are the bags? they should be almost completely compressed when all the air is out.
From what you describe the cups are too short. If the bags are all the way inflated but the clip is still slammed all the lift is getting used up just filling the coil pocket. Let me see if i can describe this process with words. Pull the bag out, use a jack to lift the lower a arm all the way to the bumpstop. This is basically where you want to be when aired out(bag fully compressed). Use a tape measure to measure from your lower mount(where the bag sits) to the top of the coil cup inside the frame where your upper mount or cup will sit. Now take the airbag and have a friend smash it all the way down and measure how tall it is. Then comes the math. Subtract the height of the empty bag from your first measurement. This is roughly how tall your top cup needs to be. I'm not sure if i worded that rite but hopefully that gives you enough of an idea. As far as the Contitech 2500's, they should be fine. I put them on my girl's 57 Ranchero which is running a 390 (a damn heavy motor for all you non ford guys), and at 145 psi it will lift the car enough to max out the suspension travel. At 200 psi the car can hop the front end about 6 inches.
Here's a really, really crappy diagram i made with paint brush, but i think it can convey my message better than words. This is lookin at the frame straight on, lower control arm at the bottom, bag is in brown, spindle is to the left of the picture. Blue for the bag mounts. Red for the measurement you need.
as mybootsareonfire said. measure the distance of your compressed suspension and go from there. like i said earlier i always use the 2600 bags in the front with a 3" top cup and a 2" bottom cup.i use 5" round stock .250 thick to make my cups.you will need to do some triming to your frame. the 2500 bags may get it up with new cups but no matter what they will require more air pressure and that will make for a harsher ride.
Judging from this picture, his cups appear to be long enough. I'm glad this thread is getting back on track and people are making a concerted effort to help bbopkat out. Any updates on the lines?
I have been trying to follow this thread to the best of abilities, wading through the useless crap that comes out of some peoples keyboards on this site. Just to clarify, you DID try putting the front solenoids/valves to the rear and they did not move niether? Or you did? Have you tried new solenoids/valves? My stuff is Air Ride Tech and my valves and solenoids are integrated. It sounds to me like you have a stuck one. If I am comletely off base, then sorry for rehashing. As for you, Weasel, your the reason I don't come on this site anymore. If I didn't see this link on another site, I wouldn't have even come on to find this. I was tired of asking an engine question, and having guys like you tell me what color to paint my car, and what wheels to put on it. Bad form. I'd say 90% of the people on this site are friendly, knowedgeable and are generally willing to help. Unfortunatly, you have to weed throught the garbage to get to the point. My 2¢ anyway.........
You pose some good points BJ. As a whole we need to stay on track to help out bbopkat and we should gang bang people like Weasel who take away from a thread and don't provide useful input. For simplicity sake, let me re-iterate what I'm trying to get at. If bbopkat takes all the electronics out of the equation and simply supplies air directly to the bags, he can tell if the system is mechanically functioning properly. If I recall he did that and the car raised a bit but not to its entirety. I'm assuming and correct me if I'm wrong bbopkat that he just unplugged the output line from the valve that goes to the front bags and checked it with his shop air. This however does not eliminate the possibility of a problem being in the lines themselves e.g. plugged or kinked...
the lines dont have any kinks, I filled up my tanks and hit the switch for my front valve and air fires out like a gun, so nothings wrong there, I also pumped air my bags and they dont go all the way up when the tires are hitting the floor, im thinking the cups for the bags are to short or not aligning good, i used 4 1/2 pipe to make the cups, im going to add a 3-4 inches in length to the cups then try them out again, before i add 5 inch width pipe. I dont think i mentioned that i also put a 76 camaro front clip and stepped it! ill check back after i do so, thanks again guys
do you not know what the side of a cig pack is?? hahaha a pack is probably more like 2-2 1/2 inches... anyways, driving the car MYSELF, i encountered all of the above driving from oregon to so-cal.. as well as crazy gas station driveways.. driving a low car is no problem if you know what your doing. glad to see your feelings got hurt enough to act so childish lol.
Man .......i dont get hurt, I handle business! my 56 buick is lower than 2" no air bags, and it comes with to much probems where i live
i tried to read through all the posts but there is defintely an air bag leaking on this thread. anyhow the best way to determine your problem has been mentioned and forgive me if you already tried it. jack the front end fill the bags and see where you sit.if its too low take a look at the bag and see if it is still holding its inflated shape,if not then the weight is too much,if it is then you need taller cups.i suggest going with 5" diameter pipe .
Hey Weasel, quit driving this thread off topic. Read again what Ray said. It might have gone over your head. When you say shocks are for car control, how do you think that is? You better do some reading and try to provide something productive to this thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_absorber
It seems to me that your bags are not positioned right to allow them to lift the front of your Buick. You mentioned that it has a 74 Camaro front clip. I looked on the airride tech web site and noticed that most of their set-ups have a plate that is installed as well as a cup. The plate which reduces the distance between the two mounting surfaces, attaches to the frame where the upper end of the coil spring was mounted. The cup fits in the pocket in the lower control arm. I bagged a 67 Chevy pick-up and my experience is limited to it, but it also had a plate mounted to the frame. This plate, in addition to the cup, gives you the correct dimension to lift the front of your ride. I've had the bags installed for 3 years and haven't had any problems. Hope this makes sense. If I can be of more help to you, let me know. This is basically what laid55 and others have said. Red
OK i just added to 3 inches to the cups but now the car wont hit the ground, I have those plates welded to the pipe where the bags bolt up. im getting 4" lift, the bags fully extend at 8 inches, off the car, and theres no leaks in the bags should the a arms fully extend when the bags are full of air?
Drop the car to where you want it at its lowest. Measure the distance from the mounting point on the lower control arm to the pocket where the cup would sit. Subtract 3" from that number for the height of the fully compressed bag and that number should be you cup height including its mounting plate. If all that is calculated and fabricated, you should get 5" of raising ability in your bags.
I am no airbag expert and I'm sorry BBoppKat this won't help you at all but I do wish you luck, but this needs to be said. There are two newbies posting on this thread that are making themselves look dumber by the minute. Neither has posted a valid arguement and both resort to name calling to help prove their point, thus adding to the demise of this thread. Will they please stand up and be counted?
Hey bbopkat, it's possible that the front end you are using isn't capable of the travel your looking for. I don't recall what the travel is on a Camaro front end, but i do know that the "regular" travel is only about 8". The fact that you have a big cup on there may be causeing the travel issue as well. Something to look at?
your collapsed bag height is 3", so lower your buick to the lowest height you want it to sit, now make the distance from the upper cup to the lower cup 3", no matter what it takes to do so....now reinstall your bags, voalla
What the hell Weasel? Did an airbag kill your dog or what? This thread wasn't started to discuss the whether or not airbags should be used on customs. It was a guy who needed help. Airbags, or air springs since seem to want to be all technical about suspensions, are here to stay, especially since for many of us customs and lowriders aren't that far apart. Seein as how you're in So Cal why don't you come over and i'll take you for a drive in a car with a properly setup up air suspension. You'll see that it actually handles and rides pretty damn nice. It's also nice not draggin the frame thru driveways, dips, etc. I know its not as 'hardcore' as driving a car that is statically lowered, but then again if destroying the underside of my car is hard, i'd rather be soft. By the way the purpose of shocks is in fact to control spring oscillation and body roll, but as an expert i'm sure you already knew this. I don't know what 'car control' refers to, but i'm sure you can explain it. Now while i may not be an expert, i've spent a fair amount of time in the off road world. I've set up more suspensions then i can remember and i figure if i've worked on trucks with as much as 26 inches of wheel travel, i probably have a pretty good idea of how suspensions work and am more than qualified to refute any argument you try to make.
Sounds like progress in isolating the issue. but now I have more questions First, it sounds like the car did lift this time (under its own air power) which is good, it also sounds like you added 3" but got 4" of lift (is that correct). When the car is now down, how far off the ground are you. you might only need 2" of extra cup? (but that will depend on your answer) Also you are now seeing one of the downsides to using the 2500 lb bag, not as much lift. you queston will the A arms fully expend, No... the bags will not full extend, they will only go up as much as the bag will lift (in this case 4").
i feel like a complete idiot...i took a factory ordered 55 caddy coupe de ville with eldorodo interior package and dual fours and dropped to the ground on air.........how stupid.and a bagged 30 model a roadster????what was i thinking.i'm sure my grin is bigger driving my coil spring f150 or my wifes nissan!!!!
I wish I could contribute to your air bag question. I only have a comment about how Weasel says "airbags belong in Congress not on cars" then recites Califonia code. Does that make him a congress man or an air bag?<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
gambino kustoms just help me out with what i was doing wrong, and I got them to work, I was not getting the right Measurement i needed to slam my frame, what i was doing wrong was lifting the control arm all the way up and measuring the distance from the control arm to where the coil sits, which was giving me the wrong size, alex told me to lift up my car and place the frame on jackstands and to measure the distance from the frame to the floor, then lift the tire with my jack till the tire reaches the same distance as the frame so both tire and frame have the same distance the floor, then measure the distance where the coil sits! then subtrack 3 inches and that would be my cup size! another problem is that I "Z" my camaro sub frame to my 50 buick frame, I did a big Z which was giving me a couple problems with the cup size, the normal cup size would be 4 inches, but because i Zed my frame to much that i had to use an 8 inch cup! dang this problem was driving me nutts Thank all you guys that were taking time in helping me out! ill post some more pics when i get them up! thanks again!
The Jalopy Journal
