Air Shock - Alternative to Coilovers

[Travisfab]

Im curios if anyone has removed their torsion bars and replaced them with an air shock from a company like Fox or King.

Air shocks are similar to coilovers in that they can support the weight of the vehicle. I'm not looking for a huge lift, but I just cant seem to justify the TT. Every time I've ever cranked torsions bars in the past, the ride quality has gone severely down hill.

 

[newstylecustoms]

Im curios if anyone has removed their torsion bars and replaced them with an air shock from a company like Fox or King.

Air shocks are similar to coilovers in that they can support the weight of the vehicle. I'm not looking for a huge lift, but I just cant seem to justify the TT. Every time I've ever cranked torsions bars in the past, the ride quality has gone severely down hill.

I may be mistaken but I thought the air shocks didn't have much load capacity ie an explorer with IFS would be way too heavy. The shocks would have to be large in diameter to support the weight. I have a friend that built a toyata based truggy with air shocks/straight axles and it was very slow to respond, ok for rocks but not much else.

 

[Travisfab]

"Fox air shocks provide 1.15 pounds of spring force for every pound of nitrogen pressure from 50-500 psi"

So it looks like the max spring rate you could get would be 575, which is definitely going to be on the light side.

 

[Flash]

Have a look at these, they would support the weight of your truck ok.

You would have to do something about the mounting to be able to fit them in.

look at these too.

 

[newstylecustoms]

Airwaves are severly limited on travel around 4" on most, I was assuming this was going to be for a suspension improvement or offroad. Also the axles are in way for any large diameter shocks.

 

[Travisfab]

Airwaves are severly limited on travel around 4" on most, I was assuming this was going to be for a suspension improvement or offroad. Also the axles are in way for any large diameter shocks.

Exactly!

No room for those, I'm not interested in changing ride height, or mounting a compressor. I know of a guy that is running air shocks on an Explorer with a bypass shock. That is a bit much for my daily driver, but I am waiting to hear back from him.

 

[Travisfab]

Also...


I tried searching, but does anyone happen to know the spring rates for the various available torsion bars?

 

[GJarrett]

I've never seen "spring rates" for the torsion bars but many of us have installed coilovers, so I supposed you could guesstimate torsion bar equivalence from the spring rates of coilovers that work for an Explorer. I used 750lb coils which (once they settled in) seem to closely duplicate the spring of the torsion bars (though they rode much smoother than the torsion bars).