Your air suspension isn't riding as well as it could be. We've got some shocks that can help.
Hi I'm Damien with QA1 here with Trevor. Today we're going to talk about why air suspension is
going to benefit from adjustable shocks. Trevor let's start off with what is air suspension.
Yeah so in a real basic sense Damien an airbag system will allow you to adjust the ride height of
your vehicle and and vary it based on how much air pressure you put inside of your airbag. And really
what that bag is more or less is a variable rate spring. So by adding air to that we're increasing
the spring rate and raising the ride height and if we take air out of that bag we're decreasing the
spring rate which then lowers the ride height. How do shocks benefit that and specifically adjustable
shocks how how is that going to benefit the ride quality of the car? When you increase the spring
rate inside your bag to the point where it's at a you know adequate ride height for driving
around on. What you're doing there is is kind of making that spring rate pretty stiff for for a
nice comfortable ride. If you've got an air system you still really want to run shocks with it. And
where you can benefit if you've got an air system is with a an adjustable valving shock. So what we
can do with the with the double adjust shock is we can control our compression valving. We can
we can soften just the compression side of that shock to add some compliance there. So
even though we've got that heavier spring we can soften the shock make it a smoother ride
and then and then the other side of that of the double adjust shock would be the rebound valving.
And for that what we're going to do is utilize that rebound valving to firm up how how much
force it takes to extend that shock apart so we can see a big handling improvement. When we've
got firmer rebound valving we'll get less body roll less sway in the corners while also having
a softer compression valving and a better ride. So I know sometimes a vehicle on bags on air
it's going to have kind of a floaty ride. Yep. And is the rebound valving going to help with
that? Yeah definitely. You can you can use the rebound and sometimes the compression valving too
to find that sweet spot and get a more you know damp in that spring and control that more of a
controlled ride smooth it out. Exactly. Correct. So get rid of that floaty feeling. Yep. Okay
well most most air suspensions are going to be a custom application. Right. So we don't necessarily
have an off-the-shelf shock that's going to fit anymore because it is now a custom suspension.
With someone doing a custom setup like that how how do we get a shock matched up and how do we
figure that out for their vehicle? Yeah what you'd want to do is get the bags in place
and you know fully air them out lower it as if you'd want to see it you know
aired out at a show for instance. And and at that point what you'd want to measure
is your your shock mounting point from from shock mount to shock mount and you may have a stud style
configuration or a t-bar or an eyelet you know we've got we've got all sorts of various mounting
styles you need. But the main thing here would be to measure from shock mount to shock mount
at that fully aired out point and then we'll also want to raise the vehicle up to its ride height
point and and take that measurement as well. Okay. So when you say ride height that's the height that
the car is going to be driving down the road? Yep exactly. So not not fully extended suspension
hanging like it's on a hoist? It's a good idea to have that as a reference point you know to
make sure we aren't topping the shock out at all during during driving. So yeah I would generally I
would ideally find a shock that's going to have a little bit more compression travel than when we're
fully aired out. So we're not holding the car up. Exactly we don't want to air it down and have that
shock limit travel at all. Sure. And then also you know if we if we let the suspension fully
droop down and hang you know in a perfect world we'll have a little bit more shock travel than
than that measurement as well. Okay so now once we get those measurements what do we
do with them. Yeah I'd consult either the QA1 catalog at that point or our website
in our tech section or in any of our our shock listings we have a dimensional guide as well
of the fully extended and fully compressed lengths of each shocks and of course to if
you've got any questions on that you can call our tech line and consult with us as well.