Hydo or Air?

[tbone]

Not sure if this discussion has ever been formally put out but wht are the pros and cons of Air vs Hydro vs coil overs?

[gobraves02002]

the only bad thing i have heard of air is that it can be a bitch to find the leaks

[bumpn_gt]

air will sit you about 4" off the ground......hydro's will sit you ON the ground.......talk to jordanGT....he has done a LOT of research on this topic (I went hydros)

[SC/TGrandAm]

depends on if you want to unibody drop your car or not.

And id be willing to bet air would sit you on the ground if you did it right.

[jordanGT]

if you do the fabrication, you can set air on the ground with mac struts, but it's a bitch. putting hydraulics on a mac car makes it MUCH easier to lay it out. the problem with air is this...you really need to use cylinders to get it low, but because of the lack of an upper control arm on a macpherson strut car, regular cylinders **** out really quick under all that pressure, so you have to run beefier, macpherson-styled cylinders from a place like brisland's. the only problem there is, they have 4 inches of stroke...4. Once you factor in the slight mechanical advantage you'll get from the lower control arm, that's around 5-6 inches of lift, which isn't great. There's also a way to keep the stock strut in place without a spring on it to act as a shock and upper control arm and mount a cylinder (would work as a regular air cylinder or hydraulic cylinder) on the lower control arm up to the unibody structure. i'm just unsure on if there's enough room in there for that on a grand am; i've taken a quick glance, but done nothing more.

basically, air and hydraulics both have problems; people bash juice cuz of half-assed setups. set up correctly with good parts and accumulators, hydraulics won't leak, your batteries won't blow up, solenoids probably aren't gonna stick, motors won't blow (unless you're silent running 24 volts with accumulators and having to lay on the switch to get the car up ) The debate of 'is air or hydraulics better' really falls to personal choice. if you want more specific info on how either setup works, let me know.

[sweet98gagt]

people that have air said they would take hydros anyday after all the bs they have been through w/ bags ripping. The other dangerous concern w/ bags if it pops while ure driving ure car is gonna suddenly shoot hard to the left or right depending on what bag blows and that could cause a serious accident. I dont know **** else besides that, but i thought i'd throw that out there as well

[jordanGT]

while that's a valid point, unless you push your system way too hard or install in poorly, those shouldn't be problems. If you have a bag rated at 140 psi and consistently throw 200 psi into it, yeah, you're running some risks of it tearing. If you stay within the manufacturer's specs, MOST of the time, you're not going to have problems. Also, you have to allow a couple inches of clearance on both sides of an air spring when installing it. If that means you've gotta trim some stuff, trim it. If you don't, your bag will rub on metal and pop. Honestly, ripping and popping bags shouldn't be a problem.

[gobraves02002]

glad to hear that cause im leaning towards bags

[sweet98gagt]

cool, i never knew that

[bumpn_gt]

get dro's........its the only way to go on a GA....speaking of which, OT but, I just got done cutting my wheel wells out today so that I have a nice clean lay out!

[rizer]

Get bags then run nitrogen. Bouncey, bouncey

[jordanGT]

all things said, though, i'd still run hydraulics anyday on a Grand Am over air ride. Yeah, with the right amount of fabrication, you can get a setup to lay out well, but you're gonna be hard pressed to get the performance and ride quality that you could get with hydraulics and accumulators. It's possible, but it would be a lot more work...and have fun trying to fit a nitrogen tank and ANYTHING else into your trunk.

[jordanGT]

Darn; I thought this was gonna end up being a good discussion, but it sorta died. Oh well

[bumpn_gt]

hm......guess you and I are the only ones interested in this,

[blckgagt]

I don't know too much about coilovers, but im pretty interested in them because the more i think about it i want the car to be able to handle really well and air/hydros aren't good for that. Anyways in order to lower your car with coilovers, do u have to take off your wheels to do this? Cus that seems like a huge hassel. Probably a very dump question, but i don't know. Before this duscussion i always thought air bags would be best but after reading this, id lean more towards hydros. How comparable are the prices between the two?

[jordanGT]

i disagree with the idea of air and hydraulics not handling well. true, a basic setup won't, but with hydraulics, i think it would definitely be possible to do it. Think about it, the spring rate with hydraulics is totally separate from the height adjustability. You'd just have to do some searching and modding to get the perfect spring height and spring rate to handle well and still sit the way you'd like with it laid out. i think it would be very possible on a vehicle with a separate frame and upper and lower control arms; it'd be feasible, but more difficult with a unibody car.

as for the price comparisons, you can get a street kit for around 800 bucks, though i wouldn't suggest it. a comp. kit runs about $1100 and then add a couple hundred for accumulators and then some dough for batteries and some angle iron to build your battery/pump rack. i'd think they're probably pretty comparable, especially if you're building an air setup with a couple tanks and good compressors and valves.

[blckgagt]

How hard is it to lower your car with coilovers? I know that i want adjustability so lowering springs aren't cutting it. Not to sure about getting airbags and hydraulics, coilovers are a lot more simplistic. And i don't really want a huge air tank in my truck if i was to get air bags, and the hydraulics seem to take up a quite a lot of space. I think the coilovers are easier to maintain than having to replace parts every so often and what not.

[tbone]

Coilovers replace your shocks and they adjust by jacking the car up untill the wheel is off the ground and spining the collar on the coil over up or down. more mannual and not quite as convinient. but WAY cheaper.

[blckgagt]

Im not too sure about that because the only coilovers available for our cars our the bilistein ones from mantapart and they sell for 1,500.

[gobraves02002]

in an airbag setup what parts of it make noise, besides the bags on each tire
i mean like the tank or other parts
im thinking of builing a setup with some parts in backseat and some in trunk