4 link with air bags

:drool1: Mine's broken right now. They think a little too much nitrous on the line had something to do with shearing transmission shafts. :evil Does anyone run a trans brake in the lighter trucks? I know the heavy trucks make transmissions explode, but what about these lighter, 4-linked versions?

bnraodn.
 
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I looked at doing a transbrake. But, all of the tranny guys didn't want to touch it.

Even with my truck lightned they all thought that with the power I plan on making, the hit of the nitrous, and traction that my shafts wouldn't like me not to mention that they were afraid I might end up wearing some of my tranny case home in my shins.

I played with one but I ended up taking it out. For me I went with wilwood 4 piston calipers in the rear with some special modofications to my brake system (think fluid routing). That way I can load my suspension, absorb some of the tire shock, and leave with the converter at full stall without pushing through the lights.

~Wes~
 
Crawler said:
It will work but I would make two suggestions.

1 coil-overs work much better.
2 if you're planning on putting down big numbers, be sure to weld the brackets to the rear end. Don't rely on clamping using the bolt on kit. I've seen rear ends rotate inside the brackets.

By the way here is a pic that shows how I did my 4 link.

SMDiesel's "LIL 6BT"

~Wes~
Click to expand...
IYO why do coil overs work much better?
 
I cant find any pictures right now, but we use air bags on our pulling truck. Its a 1000 hp Ford gasser, but we pull in a class that required 1 inch of rear suspension travel. To eliminate weight from the rear of the truck, and transfer it to the front bumper, we removed the rear leaf springs. We built our selves a 4 link rear suspension. The top to links came from the center of the pumpkin going outwards to the frame, and the bottom two links are the opposite. These two opposite "V's" is what kept our rearend centered under the truck. Then we mounted two Airbags from Airlift (just one of those overload kits), and put our stop blocks in place using 1" all thread for our adjustment. We only had to use about 8 pounds of air to keep the truck at the 1 inch ride hight rule. Once you hooked up and pulled the slack out of the chain you were on solid suspension. I know its a totally differant application, but I thought I would share. lol It takes some abuse also.

Patrick
 
The coilovers allow more adjustment believe it or not. With air bags to get a compression rate difference you must in flate or deflate the airbag, this in turn changes ride height. With a coil-over you have the option to change height and compression as well as rate independent of each other.

Now, in this comparison I'm speaking of conventional air-bag setups.

But, if you were to use limiting straps and stops, then some of that could be thrown out the window.

But with a coilover the you also still have options for different spring rates (1 rate, 2 rate, progressive/variable). With your air bag you will still be limited by the properties of air and its ability to be compressed.

Air-bags could be viable. I hope that if you chose to use them that it comes out without a glitch. On the other hand they could be a tuning nightmare, due to the extra fabrication and equipment required to accomodate certain changes.

In my application. I need a coil-over due to space constraints.

I wouldn't want to use a "Shockwave" for hardcore racing. So I would have to have the airbag and the shocks mounted separately. This would be a bit problematic for me.

For street driving and a little bit of play, I might run the "Shockwaves" but on ly then. I don't feel they would hold up very well to the abuse that my suspension must contend with. They're a bit pricey to replace on a regular basis.

I'm sure that I've forgatten something But, if I did; I imagine it will be mentioned. ;)

~Wes~
 
Patrick@DPP said:
I cant find any pictures right now, but we use air bags on our pulling truck. Its a 1000 hp Ford gasser, but we pull in a class that required 1 inch of rear suspension travel. To eliminate weight from the rear of the truck, and transfer it to the front bumper, we removed the rear leaf springs. We built our selves a 4 link rear suspension. The top to links came from the center of the pumpkin going outwards to the frame, and the bottom two links are the opposite. These two opposite "V's" is what kept our rearend centered under the truck. Then we mounted two Airbags from Airlift (just one of those overload kits), and put our stop blocks in place using 1" all thread for our adjustment. We only had to use about 8 pounds of air to keep the truck at the 1 inch ride hight rule. Once you hooked up and pulled the slack out of the chain you were on solid suspension. I know its a totally differant application, but I thought I would share. lol It takes some abuse also.

Patrick
Click to expand...

Patrick any pics of that 4 link?
 
It was saved on our old server. Since we moved our store to a new server, I think they are Pigs in space. I will go dig around and see if I can find anything.
 
We own Truckpulls.com, DiscountPowerParts.com, Powerstroke-diesel.com, and I cant find those pictures anywhere. I thought they were on truckpulls, but they must have been deleted when we moved to the new server in september. When I get to the shop tomorrow I will see if they are on one of the computers, or a disk. That truck is baried in the lower garages for the next few months, so it would be awhile before I could take new pictures. For truckpulling it worked great. Just enough preasure to hold the truck up off of the blocks to meet rule requirements. This year they actually changed the rule to solid suspension (finally). We are not pulling this year.

I will check for sure tomorrow.

Patrick
 
Crawler said:
The coilovers allow more adjustment believe it or not. With air bags to get a compression rate difference you must in flate or deflate the airbag, this in turn changes ride height. With a coil-over you have the option to change height and compression as well as rate independent of each other.

Now, in this comparison I'm speaking of conventional air-bag setups.

But, if you were to use limiting straps and stops, then some of that could be thrown out the window.

But with a coilover the you also still have options for different spring rates (1 rate, 2 rate, progressive/variable). With your air bag you will still be limited by the properties of air and its ability to be compressed.

Air-bags could be viable. I hope that if you chose to use them that it comes out without a glitch. On the other hand they could be a tuning nightmare, due to the extra fabrication and equipment required to accomodate certain changes.

In my application. I need a coil-over due to space constraints.

I wouldn't want to use a "Shockwave" for hardcore racing. So I would have to have the airbag and the shocks mounted separately. This would be a bit problematic for me.

For street driving and a little bit of play, I might run the "Shockwaves" but on ly then. I don't feel they would hold up very well to the abuse that my suspension must contend with. They're a bit pricey to replace on a regular basis.

I'm sure that I've forgatten something But, if I did; I imagine it will be mentioned. ;)

~Wes~
Click to expand...
:thankyou2:

This makes some sence to me, I do agree that the "bags" will require some more time to figure. I'm thinking that the change in spring rate would be easier as all you would do is add or subtract air and your spring rate would change. As with most "race" setups the travel is really just a side effect of the design, down travel is very limited and up travel is what you make it.....
Interesting to say the least.:Cheer:
 
i too would say go coilover... there adjustability is almost endless... if you subtract air you also subtract ride hieght.... air is an uncontroled progessive spring action... coilovers you can run dual or even triple rate and have each spring come into play by adjusting the collar...

also watch how you set up your 4 link... if you build it with too much anti-squat... you can get tons of wheel hop... to little and not enough bite... make your link mounts on the frame adjustable to better tune you bite (anti-squat)
 
That Kelderman kit that they put on 4x4extream this weekend on a 08 Ford looked nice, but it was a bolt on.
 
I'm bagging my '06 Dodge. Not for drag racing (though I may) but for ride and well, because it's a fun project. I am doing fronts only for now, and they are 90% done. I am also replacing my control arms with DOM and joints.

The rears are a bolt on, similar to Keldermans, and I am running the control arms to the front spring perch in a bracket.

The lift overall is 2" in the rear, 3" in the front, since the front is a touch lower, an inch actually (3"-2"= 1" haha). The lift is not enough to go any further to the center of the truck with brackets but I can if I decided to lift it any more in the future, after fabbing up new brackets.

So, here are some pics if anyone is interested, these are a few months old so if you want more recent you can PM me or email me uapilot1@hotmail.com

http://rides.webshots.com/album/273578843mGEMyY?vhost=rides

Nick
 
Trapper said:
That Kelderman kit that they put on 4x4extream this weekend on a 08 Ford looked nice, but it was a bolt on.
Click to expand...

Those Kelderman kit might work but the look like pure crap. The brackets are huge and ugly and the links look terrible. I understand the made it to be bolt on but it looks horrible.

TJ
 
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