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air bag suspension

You may want to talk to blown240, he had/has airbags on his 240. His advice wont be 7 series specific, but i'm sure he could help you out a little.

tee-heee, do a search too
 
thnx I sort have given up on searches they never have the answer to my ?'s but I gues its worth another try

thnx

Andre
 
Big Dre

you ready for a novel? :-P


I guess the main question is what you want to get from the air suspension?

Do you want to be able to drop your car to the ground? or do you just want to be able to carry heavy loads?

If you just want to carry heavy loads then those will work fine. The one you emailed me is just a helper spring, It sits inside your stock springs and works like an overload spring.

If you want to be able to slam your car to the ground, then this is not at all what you are looking for.

What you need then are acutual air bags that replace the springs in your car. There are several companies that offer such bags but the best by far are made by Firestone.

You will also need to get a compressor, an air tank to use as a reservoir and some form of switches to control the air bags.

This is a very expensive modification, It can cost up to several thousand dollars if you want a fast and elaborate setup.

I had mine in my car for a couple years and I slowly upgraded it unitl I had what I consider a great setup.


I could go on for a long time about this. I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

But one thing you need to realize...Volvo front suspension is a bitch to bag.. It will take lots of custom fabrication or an expensive set of custom made air struts.

Let me know if you want me to explain any more on the is subject.

Here is a link to show what I had in my car.

http://www.barrettraceway.com/~mikeb/bag1.wmv
 
Well actually bagging the front has gotten a lot easier... Two diffrent companys(that are worth talking about) are making bag over strut applications. Air Ride Technologies and Air Lift Company. They will run between 500 and 1000 a pair depending on the company, ART's are more exspensive because the are milled from billet aluminum(sp) and Air Lift's are not. The other option is fabricating a new front suspension to accept a bag and shock... very exspensive and from everyone I have seen not very reliable when it comes to longevity. Another way I have seen it done is to take the spring off the strut and fabricate a perch for the bag.. but it dosent go near low enough.
As far as Firestone bags being the best... 2 years ago I would have agreed but, I would now consider Firestone, Air Lifts 2nd gen, and Slam Specailties all very good bags and consider them all quality springs.
I worked in the fabrication, manufacturing end of the buisness a long time so if your interested I could probably get you discounts with anyone besides AIM *barf* please dont EVER buy anyting from them *barf*

I plan on bagging mine within the next 6 mos or so... but I have it a whole lot easier because I own the 140 series :)

Just to show you its always possible to bag ANYTHING here is some thing we built while I was with RoadSurfer
164.jpg

163.jpg
 
Ya a 140 should be a snap to bag compared to a 240/740. I made my own front struts, but it was a real PITA. The AERO STRUT looks cool, buit the technology might be a bit too new. I am concerned that the inner sleve will wear and leak.

I have bought 1thing from AIM and I regret it. It was my shaved door lock kit. I have had to modify the solenoids so they dont blow apart. and my remotes barely work. I am going to get an Autoloc remote kit and trach these ones.
 
BLOWN240 said:
Ya a 140 should be a snap to bag compared to a 240/740. I made my own front struts, but it was a real PITA. The AERO STRUT looks cool, buit the technology might be a bit too new. I am concerned that the inner sleve will wear and leak.

I have bought 1thing from AIM and I regret it. It was my shaved door lock kit. I have had to modify the solenoids so they dont blow apart. and my remotes barely work. I am going to get an Autoloc remote kit and trach these ones.
Click to expand...
Building your owns struts is a huge PITA :)
Did you use the volvo cartride or go with the toyota one(much shorter... much lower :) )
I think I am going with the Shockwaves... they are so pretty, and they handle awesome.
Whos making the AERO STRUT? The sleeve over strut is actually not a bad design because they will only go up and down with no articulation... although I would be worried that the bag would be too small and would have to run at to high a pressure.
 
What I did was start with a standard firestone small bag. I drilled a hole thru it, big enough for the shock shaft to pass thru, and welded the nut that holds the strut in on one side. The other side i attached to the upper strut mount using some washers, orings and silicone, basically whatever I could use to make it air tight. Then I mounted the whole thing in the car like normal.

As fas as the rest of my setup. I used small bags in the rear. I had 2 Viair 450 compressors and a single 5 gallon tank. I used 1/2 inch line with 5/8 electric solenoids and a 10 switch box. I also had 4 MIC manual switches with 1/4 line that was used as a fine adjust.

the Aerostut can be found here http://www.universalairsuspension.com/doublestrut.html
 
Marvelous3 said:
tried posting these using the
thing but pbase doesn't allow hosting like that or am I doing sometihng wrong?
Click to expand...


i've been trying the same things, but my links always come up as broken, tho if i click the url for the pic itself it goes right to the pic i linked to in the first place....any mods able to offer assistance with this issue??


Billy
 
I reconize them now... too many AIM parts to make me comfortable though.
So whats your limiting factor now? Upper control arm in the tower? Pretty inventive on the strut set up .. Thumbs up :)
 
The problem is that the belly pan touches the ground, and the control arms almost hit the frame. I seems that you can get a good 5-6 inch drop in the front, but you can get a lot more in the rear.
 
When I bagged my volvo I bought the rear bags & front struts from AIM. You have to catch them on a good day cause they can be a HUGE pain in the ass. You get the wrong parts, things don't fit, etc etc. Some may have seen it but here is the link to my old T5 http://www.cardomain.com/id/flntroc
 
are you re building your t5 or is it gone for good

sorry to see those pics man on page 4

some bad luck for sure

Andre
 
yeah I just cut my losses & i've started on another one. Hit a snag with the AWD system in my R & haven't had much time to get under & make a new setup. I'm hoping to get somewhere on the project in the upcoming months. I can't stand not having air bags. It's boring. http://www.cardomain.com/id/flintrock
I have started making kits for the rwd 850 & 70 series up to 2000 if anyone is interested in rear kits.
 
...dare I say...I was.

Still am. I don't know anything about air suspension other than concept and general functioning but I'm slowly pulling my suspension back to normal and feel like it might be my style vs some cut spring/short shock setup. I know it's expensive but what isn't. Still trying to find actually useful information in these threads
 
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