Couple Air Ride ?'s

I know this is probably not hamb friendly but I have a few ?'s on air ride. I have a 52 chevy that I will be installing a kit on. I was told 1/4 lines and just one 480c compressor will be fine for what i want to do. So my questions is this fine and what solenoids to I use, what brand, how big of tank.....I see alot of cheap kits on the net and it seems if i go straight to the manufacturers it is HIGH....Thanks for the help!!!

 

Alot Of deciding factors
But yes 1/4 will work. Most systems nowadays run 3/8" lines and valves. 5 gallon tank with your 480 will be fine for basic up and down

 

is there one valve that is better then the other....i see a bunch of kits online that have valves, tank, and compressor but the price seems like the valves would be super cheap.....

 

ridetech is the only system i go to go with...have done 5 of them and no issues

 

Used them all
I like the smc and airlift ones
You'll Need 8 of them

 

SMC are good also GC Extremes i have ran on my trucks. I also was the oddball and used hyraulic line with push on barbed fittings, never had any leaks like the push to connect fittings. I like Slam bags. Also get the 3/8lines, you can easily slow down the dumps later if you want. JIMMY

 

5 gallon tank with a single compressor will be fine, just don't expect to do a lot of playing around with it. Like Ryno said, that will get you your basic up and down.

1/4 line will work, but I would use 3/8 line with 3/8 valves and you can slow down the dump side to fine tune the speed. Can even put a ball valve on the fill side to fine tune the speed as well.

As for what brand of valves, I am a fan of the SMC valves. Had them on 2 rides now and haven't had any problems.

 

I had good luck with Slam Bags, SMC valves, Viair compressors and Dixon fittings. A single 480 compressor and 5 gallon tank, as recommended already, will be adequate.

 

ill just put in my experience......i would do 2 compressors and 2 of the 5 gallon tanks personally. I think you will get annoyed waiting for the compressed air to build back up. its pretty cheap to ad an additional viar compressor and 5 gallon tank. yes do 1/4 inch lines I changed mine from 1/2 inch because it dropped way tooooooo fast

i play around with ride height alot and use the baggs often so 2 tanks is good for my set up

if you just want to raise it up leave it at ride height and then lower it when you get somewhere then you only need 1 compressor and 1 tank

 

I also use adjustable "fill" valves and "dump" regulators for a nice slow rise and drop.

 

Just to throw a wrench in the whole thing. I met a guy today that said he only uses mechanical air suspensions. He said they're more reliable. We didn't talk too long, I was working. He said he ran those in a '49 Chevy hardtop, '54 Lincoln, and 60's Catalina. I'm on the same boat with Yanksta, I'm getting ready to put my system in. Just a couple things, a little advice, and some time is all I need. But now this guy has me doubting what I had planned.

 

For mechanical you mean rocker switches right? The koolest of them are the MIC valves/switches, they basically look like regular electric ones but they hook up direct to the airline.
And actually, these are better even, same design as MIC http://littllarrys.com/
Theyre expensive, but for lay and play air ride cant be beaten lookwise.

As for electric valves i'd go SMC too for single valves, althou i had some pretty cool manifolds from Airlift that looked to be pretty much bullet proof and totally serviceable and rebuildable.
Then if you wanna take it a notch up check out Empire Customs, they sell aircraft derived air valves. They look THE best, and it seems they truly are bulletproof.

 

I'm running dual 380c Viair and 3/8" smc with ball valves on the fill side to keep it from hopping. I think my tank is 8 gal or so and it takes over 10 minutes to get to 200lbs with both comps and they get pretty hot.

If you go with manual rockers just remember you will be airing out into the cab of your vehicle if dash mounted or if you wanted to route the dumps out, it's just extra plumbing to do.

 

You can use pneumatic switches found on mcmastercarr.com for a manual setup, nice thing about switches is you don't need solenoids

 

heres a link to some cheap valves on ebay. seach "electric solenoid valve" rather than air ride valves thay are the same thing just a lot cheaper. pay $10 each instead of $40 each
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-So...135?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c931c76f