Air suspension on a Jeep from AccuAir
Optimized-contourmapping

Air suspension on a Jeep from AccuAir

Giovanni

Giovanni

Active member
I have a buddy who is heavy in street cars and car shows and such. Over the weekend he was telling me about a company that makes air suspensions for Jeeps: https://accuair.com/

Honestly, I don't know @#$#$ about air suspensions. Actually I take that back - I thought they were only used on low riding show cars. Well it turns out you can control your Jeeps ride height with this suspension. What I want to know is what down sides could come from running an air suspension? Seems like you get best of both worlds: set ride height on freeways/pavement for best MPG. Then when offroad, raise it up and get the clearance you need for offroad adventures.

Is it that easy or is there negative side to this?
 
One of my buddies installed either that system or a similar system. His vehicle was a hard use, off road toy. It was "sold" to him that it gave the best of all worlds. let me tell you where they were wrong.
We did, dirt, sand and rock crawl.
For rocks you need tall squishy suspension for clearance and travel. Sand you want lower stiffer for stability, dirt, a bit in the middle.
You raise the vehicle for rocks, The air bags stiffen the suspension. No more travel and too stiff.
Sand you let the air out and now you have squishy suspension with a ton of body roll when cutting sand dunes.
Dirt...it actually works well.

I have a sample of one vehicle. I would prefer posting with more then that. I can see it working if you chose the correct height of bag and had the correct pressure. The down side is your building it for one use. same as normal springs. Street wise it would rock.

Based on my experience in suspensions, I knew it wouldn't work for him. On the other hand, I've built several air suspended vehicles for towing and street. I also run air to supplement my suspension in my Cruiser and my trailers. If any of my airbags looses air, I still have the spring. If not, I wouldn't be driving it.
 
Water was fine. The control panel had a small computer in it. I would keep that dry. It also has a block of valves under the hood. You can raise and lower in any combination. I suppose you could get mud in the vent or submerge the compressor. He used a Viair compressor and those are real durable. Sad part was, the valve assembly went out within two years and out of warranty. We ended manually filling the bags until he ripped it all out and went back to coils.
 
Interesting, what about dust and heavy mud. The question is why aren't more companies pushing out systems like this?
 
We didn't do much mud. As I mentioned earlier, the valve assembly quit working within a couple of years. I don't know if it was due to poor quality or dirt. It was mounted in the engine compartment.

In my opinion, this is a $7500 street mod. Plus installation. Figure 9-10k.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top