An air suspension system may seem like a super complex thing at first glance if you are not familiar with how they operate, but we promise it’s not a magic controller in your car that makes it go up and down to your heart's content. Here we will break down exactly how an air suspension system works so that you can understand how a bagged car operates behind the scenes.
Air Struts vs Coilovers
The most apparent thing when actually looking at a strut on a bagged car compared to a traditional coilover is that the spring has been traded out for an “air spring” or bag. This is what will enable the vehicle to raise and lower depending on how much air is currently in the bag. More air pressure means higher vehicle height whereas lower or no air pressure means slammed on the ground. This is what enables your vehicle to have that aired out, tight fitment that everyone is chasing when they bag their cars nowadays.
Okay, but how does the up and down part work?
The brain of the entire operation is the control system of your setup, these are your Air Lift 3P’s and Accuair e-Level’s that you see around when shopping for air suspension kits. How these work is you have an air tank for storing air that is produced by single or dual compressors which are in communication with your ECU to know when to top up on air if your tank gets low on pressure. Then from your controller you are able to focus that flow of air to whichever corner of the car you would like, whether you are adding pressure to “air up” which raises the car, or expels air to “air out” to lower the car. This works because your controller and manifold are in communication with one another, so any input from your air controller in the cabin is telling the manifold where to send air in your system or when to dump air out.
What your manifold’s valves are doing
In a modern manifold you will have a total of 8 valves; 4 fill valves and 4 dump valves. This is used to isolate the filling or dumping of air on a per corner basis which gives the user more control on how they want their vehicle to handle or look. This more modern approach makes it possible for your vehicle to perform much more similarly to how a car on coilovers would, especially when compared to older air management systems which had 2 fill valves and 2 dump valves. This was an issue because anytime you wanted to change air pressures, it would apply to both corners in the front or both corners in the rear, giving you less control over how your car would handle in real world applications.
Controlling an air suspension system
The air controller in your system will vary depending on what system you purchase, but in most cases you will have a screen displaying pressures for our air springs and tank and buttons that are assigned to a specific corner of the car to air up or down. The best way to look at your controller is as a diagram of each corner of your car, meaning the bottom right buttons on your controller would control your rear passenger side corner for example. This makes it easier and more intuitive to understand how your controller works. On top of this there will also be buttons assigned to presets that you can set a specific pressure to, meaning you can reach that specific pressure on the fly with one press of a button. This is an extremely convenient addition to modern air management systems that we recommend making use of.
Final Thoughts
So as you can see, air suspension systems are fairly straightforward once you know how the magic happens. Taking the time to understand these things will make owning a bagged car much easier in the long run and make the experience that much more enjoyable. As always if you have any questions about air ride or how it works, hit us up and we would be happy to help!
Don't feel like reading all these words? Check out our video below explaining how air ride systems work!
If you have any questions about air ride, let us know! Hit the chat button on the site to chat with us directly, shoot us an email at sales@bagriders.com, or give us a call at (844)-404-7344.
