Coilovers or air shocks

southern

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 29, 2009
Location
trinity
Looking to put either coilovers or air shocks on my bronco. The frnt already has coilovers but rear dosent weigh alot so think air shocks would be ok. What do you guys think. And thinking around a 12 to 14 inch travel.
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If the truck sees any higher speed trail Riding or road use, go with coilovers.

Air shocks are great for rock crawlers where they don't go fast enough to heat up and build pressure.

What is the rear weight? Better yet the rear sprung weight?

I'm a bigger fan of coilovers as you can match the springs to weight you need to support, and get the valving right for your application so it rides nice.

I have nothing against air shocks, they are very affordable and fairly easy to set up.
 
Yea i need to weigh the rear and see how the weight distribution is. Never going to see any street time either just trails and nothing high speed
 
Kind of thinking ori struts to. Do away with need for bump stops and limit straps. Just just high as gold.
 
Anyone have any experience with ori struts?
 
Seen them in action at the hammers they were bad ass in the high speed stuff and it crawled his ass off
 
They should be for what they cost. Been looking that way or coilovers but there are so much that go into coilovers with spring weights
 
Struts are just changing the nigtergon charge
 
Ori are just fancy air shocks.

Buy coilovers and get the springs and valving right, don't have bump stops use more than 50% of up travel. You can use poly bumps with coilovers, limit straps are cheap and you need them with both coilovers and air shocks.

You will never get performance of a coilover out of an ori strut if you want air shocks save the money and run regular air shocks.
 
Mac5005 said:
Ori are just fancy air shocks.

Buy coilovers and get the springs and valving right, don't have bump stops use more than 50% of up travel. You can use poly bumps with coilovers, limit straps are cheap and you need them with both coilovers and air shocks.

You will never get performance of a coilover out of an ori strut if you want air shocks save the money and run regular air shocks.
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I've never seen anyone one shot the springs but wayne(all-tech) does recommend springs for $50 and his are slightly different than what that pirate thread is about. But I've also heard of him helping people tune via phone/email
 
Ill give him a shout and se what we can get figured out thanks guys.
 
Here is how Wayne's method works.

You install coilovers with a known Spring rate, and measure shaft compression. To make your math easier to start with install them at 0 preload.

Multiply shaft compression at ride height by initial spring rate, and this will give you weight supported at shock.

Initial spring rate = (primary rate * secondary rate) / ( primary rate + secondary rate)

For ex, if you use a 250 lower, and 150 upper to start with.

Ex: init rate = ( 250 * 150) / (250 +150)
Init rate = 37500 / 400
Initial rate = 93.75

If the shock is compressed 6" at ride height, (6 * 93.75), then you have 562.5 lbs at the shock, regardless of mounting angle. This is not corner sprung weight, but actual weight that the shock sees.

You take this number and then calculate what springs you need to have desired shock shaft showing at ride height with 2" preload.

Remember if you can, your primary spring should be 2" longer than shock travel, and upper should be same length as shock travel. You don't need triple rate stuff. Keep your spring rates within 100 lbs of each other, and set crossover rings 2-3" above dual rate slider at ride height.

The springs you start with don't matter, you are only using them as a gauge. Borrow some from a friend. etc. Just make sure they are soft enough to compress some, and stuff enough that the shock doesn't bottom out at ride height.

Read here for all the extended formulas and explanations. All of my info came from this.

the spring tech thread - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum
 
Seems to make sense ill have to read it about 10 more times but should help for sure.
 
A few comments on what I have read.
"you'll never get the performance out of a coil over, that you will with an ORI"
while I like the ORI's, I have seen some faults, One being the unloading, and 2 being the stability. I wish @mcutler would chime in on this, he just replaced his ORI's
Air shocks, are just that, shocks. Still need limiting straps, and most often, a sway bar. Break one, bust a valve off, you're dead, weekend over. But with spring overs, you may have some bounce, but, rig will still stand up and you can continue on.

Just a note, I am still on leafs, but want something different, and have been watching the pro's and con's in the real world, out on the trail.
 
For all following along, here is a calculator to find "correct" spring rates using Wayne's theory.

http://metalwerxdesign.com/files/springcalculatorv2.xlsx

You install your coilovers with a set of springs, measure the compression to find the actual load at the shock.

Then enter desired 2-3" recommended preload, with actual load, and find the new spring rate.

Disclaimer: This calculator is not the end all decision maker for spring rates but can be used to get you closer. You should always verify your numbers with an expert prior to purchase.

As well, Wayne is no longer with Alltech motorsports. He is now working with FOX.

Chris has taken over at Alltech and comes highly recommended by Wayne.
 
ORV design and fab said:
I have never heard of ori,s unloading. I thought they had pressure on both sides...Also with that pressure being on both sides eliminated the need for sway bar.
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Some people claim they do, personally I think they just haven't tuned theirs/gotten the pressures right yet. Haven't had any seat time in a rig with them but I've seen them work pretty damn well in some rigs. Then again I'm not an expert
 
iwaxmyjimmy said:
Some people claim they do, personally I think they just haven't tuned theirs/gotten the pressures right yet. Haven't had any seat time in a rig with them but I've seen them work pretty damn well in some rigs. Then again I'm not an expert
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Quite a few guys Ive rode with have them with little tuning done, but pressures dialed in. They don't have any issues with unloading, and seem to work extremely well. That said, they can have issues with seals and leaking down. When properly tuned, they cant compete with a coilover, but most feel they are easier to get 90%.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Quite a few guys Ive rode with have them with little tuning done, but pressures dialed in. They don't have any issues with unloading, and seem to work extremely well. That said, they can have issues with seals and leaking down. When properly tuned, they cant compete with a coilover, but most feel they are easier to get 90%.
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Just doing some reading on pirate, best way to remedy any push-off or unloading you're feeling, is to set the pressures to only extend with the weight of the wheel/tire and adjust the rebound screw. Pretty interesting, but not trying to derailed the the thread I think the OP should just match the coilovers.
 
ORV design and fab said:
I have never heard of ori,s unloading. I thought they had pressure on both sides...Also with that pressure being on both sides eliminated the need for sway bar.
Click to expand...

This concept is somewhat baffling... If you need a sway bar, just about the only thing that gives you what you need is a sway bar. If air struts eliminated a sway bar, that would mean that you've now increased the spring rate at the wheel and are therefore moving the roll stiffness from the sway bar to the individual wheel. This doesn't give the same effect as a sway bar, because a sway bar will act in roll and single wheel bump but not in pitch and heave. Increasing the spring rate at the individual wheels will have an effect on all of those things instead of some of them. It seems that the only reason that you can eliminate the sway bar is because the air strut increases spring rate exponentially with travel, which also isn't doing anything useful for normal wheel travel in single wheel bump.

They're really just a beefy emulsion shock, so have the same problems with big shaft displacement, etc...? That's the reason that the spring rate increases exponentially, the pressure increase has no where to go. Still, that really doesn't serve the same purpose as a sway bar, except under very limited conditions.

What am I missing here? I'm new to air struts because they're really an offroad-only thing. They don't perform well enough or reliably enough anywhere else...
 
I know they do recommend sway bars for high center of gravity stuff and higher weight vehicles.
 
iwaxmyjimmy said:
I know they do recommend sway bars for high center of gravity stuff and higher weight vehicles.
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That makes sense; if the spring rate doesn't increase fast enough for the amount of load then extra roll resistance would be needed. That seems like the real problem though, the air struts sound like they are being sold as a one-stop solution for springs, damping, and anti-roll bars all in the same package. That's not really realistic though, except for certain controlled conditions with known parameters.


Anyone know what the hysteresis looks like? Good? Bad?
 
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Fabrik8 said:
That makes sense; if the spring rate doesn't increase fast enough for the amount of load then extra roll resistance would be needed. That seems like the real problem though, the air struts sound like they are being sold as a one-stop solution for springs, damping, and anti-roll bars all in the same package. That's not really realistic though, except for certain controlled conditions with known parameters.


Anyone know what the hysteresis looks like? Good? Bad?
Click to expand...

Some things I've seen while researching them once you get over about 5-6k lbs it tends to need a pretty light rate sway bar to help with controlling body roll. Internally they are bumpstopped and which if you revalve a shock you can accomplish the same thing. But not have an actual bump-stop which could really mess some stuff up on a really hard hit. Again not first hand experience but from what I'm seeing trended on pirate.

I think a TJ or something around that weight would be fine without a sway bar, if you get your up/down travel bias correct you shouldn't be hitting bump stops. Which is different most people only run 3-4" up travel on a conventional air shock to keep unloading and body down. I do believe some people are daily driving rigs on ORIs. Again not an expert on these things it's just trends I'm noticing. Well all know anything could be made to work and that bypasses and coilovers can't be beat in go fast areas when tuned.
 
Fabrik8 said:
This concept is somewhat baffling... If you need a sway bar, just about the only thing that gives you what you need is a sway bar. If air struts eliminated a sway bar, that would mean that you've now increased the spring rate at the wheel and are therefore moving the roll stiffness from the sway bar to the individual wheel. This doesn't give the same effect as a sway bar, because a sway bar will act in roll and single wheel bump but not in pitch and heave. Increasing the spring rate at the individual wheels will have an effect on all of those things instead of some of them. It seems that the only reason that you can eliminate the sway bar is because the air strut increases spring rate exponentially with travel, which also isn't doing anything useful for normal wheel travel in single wheel bump.

They're really just a beefy emulsion shock, so have the same problems with big shaft displacement, etc...? That's the reason that the spring rate increases exponentially, the pressure increase has no where to go. Still, that really doesn't serve the same purpose as a sway bar, except under very limited conditions.

What am I missing here? I'm new to air struts because they're really an offroad-only thing. They don't perform well enough or reliably enough anywhere else...
Click to expand...

I think you pretty much nailed it.

ORI's are not popular at KOH because the rebound can't be adjusted low enough, which is also a big deal for anyone wanting to hill climb or trail ride hardcore.
 
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