Help with ride quality

[OrangeCrusher]

I need some help improving my ride in the rear. This is a heavier tube frame buggy with torsion delete, 7000lb air bags, and twin long tube conventional Rancho shocks on each side. I run anywhere from 40 to 80psi in the bags.

The problem is excessive wheel hop. Going through trails the suspension is cycling through it's entire range and it's smacking the limits. I'm usually running mid-range pressure then. On the road I run high pressures and get a lot of bouncing which makes it difficult to stay in the seat.

I'm still trying to figure out this thing. Obviously coming down in pressure will soften it up but I'm still getting a lot of bounce. I thought two big shocks would have been enough to dampen it.

I'm open to anyone's suggestions while I try to tune this.

[OrangeCrusher]

[Ol'fogasaurus]

This is an opinion, and all might not agree!

Get rid of the air bags! It is too easy to over inflate them taking away suspension travel as the air pressure increases. They are too easy to over-fill and they can get punctured fairly easily or the full tube can be dam(N)aged or pulled out of the bag.

I almost endowed my glass buggy once as I using "Air-shocks" which are about the same thing. Too easy to over inflate them for ride height (mine was for tire clearance to the body) is the main reason. On a now gone "Buggy Talk" site there was a guy who ran the bags (this is when they first came out) in his rail and was happy but then... he didn't post for a while. It seems he, and a passenger (?) may have had an incident with the bags (he never talked directly to what happened) but he said not to use the bags. This was many years ago when air-bags were just coming out and buses had started used them but the buses also had them fail on them too.

Most of the rails I see are for the sand which, I think, is similar enough to compare to.

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Nitrogen shock absorbers with dual springs on each shock. As I understand (listening to them discuss what they have changed and why) they usually start the spring rates with the lower shocks at something like 400#s while the upper shock is 200#s... give or take. I think it depends on a lot of things such as weight front to rear and the amount of travel they are playing with.

Again, this is what a lot of sand users do play with and some of them are dual purpose for both sand and trails.

If you still had torsion bars you could reset the preload but then you have travel limitations built in there too. Resetting the preload not only raises the vehicle but also stiffens the ride and there are limitations to that also.

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You are dealing with an arc, not a real big one (not sure of how much travel you are playing with but (again an opinion) you are both compression and allowing the bag to stretch but the angle to change also (twist?).

Again, something to think about (my pinion).

Lee

[OrangeCrusher]

Yeah, I think when it comes down to it your right. I drove it work today for the first time as I got it plated now. Decreased the pressure and it was a lot better.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Yeah, I think when it comes down to it your right. I drove it work today for the first time as I got it plated now. Decreased the pressure and it was a lot better.

If you are going to keep the bags there might be an option but it isn't really that sound either and that is to get an 12V air pump with pressure valving from the inside where you ride, a pressure meter you can read, this will allow you to change the pressure to what you want for the area you are driving in.

There are drawbacks to this as there are a couple of ways to hook things up and both of them have drawbacks.

If you want more info, just ask and I will talk about it.

Lee

[OrangeCrusher]

I already have that. It's pretty simple actually, but I could see where it could get complicated. My system is simple. I don't regulate each side separately which means when one bag gets pressure on it so does the other essentially, through the line they share. When a bag compresses I'd imagine the overall pressure goes up which could have negative impacts. Also, there could be differences side to side regarding how each suspension component handles the overall system pressure. One bag might sit a little higher than the other with the same pressure resulting more weight on the opposite front wheel.
Yes, yes, I see how messy this can become quickly and it does feel that when things get busy on a trail; not that I've done much.
ATM it's street time only for the most part. I've found a couple things to improve just in one trip to work. Firstly, I realized the alternator isn't charging and second, the radiator isn't going to meet the mark and I need to improve the cooling system for really hot days. Light use it's fine, but if I really want to push it on a hot day it's not gonna work.

[OrangeCrusher]

I meant to say, I have on-board air and a small tank that shuts it off at like 90-110psi, not that it gets that high, the compressor can only run 7 minutes continuously. I have a standard regulator and guage mounted next to the drivers seat to control the pressure. Originally I wanted quick adjustment of air pressure, but that requires a large storage vessel and I found out there's no room.