anyone here have experience with air ride suspension?

I have a friend who has a kit for $500, and he will put it on my car for $200-$300 bucks, and he knows what he's doing. He has bagged alot of trucks around here and has an awesome bagged F150.

but anyways, Im wondering about having it on a Civic? Im worried that if I get it, something will end up going wrong with it. Id like to have it, but I'd hate to have my car non-driveable. I cant afford to be without a car.

Also, Im wondering if it'd even be worth it. I dont want to cut up my car. Im not thinking that it'd be a low drop without cutting.

 

do you autocross? imo i wouldnt get it unless i took my car to lots of carshows, but its your car so you do what you like, i still think it would b cool but not practical for daily use

 

No autocross. Id like to though, but Im cursed with this slow automatic.

Id like to have the air ride, but like I said, it doesnt seem too good to me having it for a DD. If I had another car I could drive Id have it done in no time. But I have no clue to this air cylinder/bag suspension, so Im curious.

 

who cares if its automatic...save the money youre gona throw into useless air ride and put it into a manual swap. Ive driven air ride cars before and its retarded...they drove like hell, i was constanly adjusting the settings to try to get it level, i had to let the car run for like 5 mins to let the compressor get going, and the compressor was loud as ****! IMO air ride is dumb if its for a dd...its all for show thats it. And say bye bye to autox. Save the money for something else. If you wana go low get some adjustable coilovers and some new struts.

 

^ you do realize a properly set-up air ride suspension is about the best thing you can do suspension-wise? The key phrase being properly set-up. Proper setups ain't cheap (definitely not $500).

Personally, I wouldn't really go air ride unless I was going with an actual Air Ride kit (but they're like $4k for my stang, and I doubt they'd be much cheaper for a civic). $500 isn't going to buy you a good kit, and I wouldn't doubt it if the bags' seals were to start leaking later on down the road.

 

well the kit he has wasnt cheap. he had it on a civic, but later sold it. thats why its cheap, hes building another car.

and a manual swap is useless and too much work. for a little more i could do a B swap. but my automatic runs GREAT, never had any problems with it since its been well kept, so it will stay in my car until it just blows up. and plus, i dont have to deal with constant shifting in this busy traffic.

 

how can air ride be the best possible setup? I drove it in an integra and it was a very expensive kit and it rode like hell...i hated it. If its the best why do more people not have it?

And an auto to manual swap costs roughly a grand.....show me a b swap for that much!

 

^ A junkyard b18b swap ... then again, with the cost of replacing high-wear parts the total would be around $1500 minimum

And because you drove one car with air ride that you didn't like, every air suspension system instantly sucks? And I didn't way it was the best, just one of the best options. But with less than half the cost of air ride, you can get more or less the same exact results with coilovers. So if someone can get the same results for half the price, why should thy go with air suspension? I'm not saying he should get air ride, I'm just saying not all air suspension systems suck like you're making it sound.

Personally, I plan on throwing air ride on my stang, but that's just so I can slam the bish on the highway and raise it back up for crappy city roads.

 

A guy in Memphis just sold a complete swap for $1200, and Ive saw a full K swap go for $1500.

Ive looked at some forums and read about the air cylinders, and most of the people that had them said they hated them. Like someone said in this thread, the cylinders leaked. That instantly turned me away from getting it.

Reaper--I saw a special a few years ago, about Mustangs with air ride. They interviewed a race track that had about 10 Stangs with air ride that looked sick, and handled VERY well. These were all older guys that have been around the tracks for years. These Stangs werent laying frame by any means, but they got hella low. They said that the air ride was smoother in corners, and more comfortable for racing, and they liked the way it looked when they would park and let the air out of the bags. lol

*edit* heres my friends f150, and civic. he's done alot to each of them, and he has another civic hes building (making fast) he stopped working on this civic, and is planning on supercharging his other one. this f150 it all taken apart right now...hes planning on redoing most of it, but it was HELLA nice. all the body work and welding was done by him. the trucks bed is fully shaved.

22"s on the f150, 20"s on the civic




he has the whole front end, but is selling it now...i dont know what he'll do with this car now. i think hes just gonna finish the bags and take the turbo off.