The Road To Air

Article/Photos By: Tj Sanethong

The beef between air suspension and coilovers has been an ongoing war for as long as i can remember. I was a firm supporter of the static movement because it was cool to drive it how you parked it. Its a great concept but when you live in places like New England you start to see how air suspension is a lot more practical than coilovers.

Now this isn’t to discredit coilovers as I will forever be on coilovers, this is just to simply say air I understand air suspension now. We’re on the tail end of the winter season meaning everyone will be gearing up for the upcoming events within the next few weeks and that includes us. This install will happen this weekend. It wont be a write up, this time it will be filmed for your viewing pleasure.

Anyways back to the air suspension, what you see in the photos are the key components of the Air Lift Performance 3P kit. I would be lying to you if i said i knew all the details and mechanics of it. The kit was sourced through Bag Riders out of Burlington Vermont which happens to only be a few hours from us. Off the bat i was extremely impressed with the quality with not only the struts, but everything included. Quality hoses, fittings, compressor etc.

What amazed me the most were the front and rear struts, looking at the initial size of it I assumed they would be heavy. I was clearly wrong, they were considerably light. Most of the weight is gone now due to replacing the heavy spring with a bag. The bags are super thick and from the looks of it, no short cuts were taken in creating this product.

While opening all of the parts up for photos I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to figure out the wiring. Turns out Air Lift does all the work for you. They have what I call a labeled “Dummy Proof” harness that’s practically plug and play. They also include a wiring diagram IN COLOR! Okay it might not be that exciting but it made it easier for me to fully understand what I was diving into. Some of you reading this are probably thinking “ Pfftt this guys dumb its easy” or “ Dang I didn’t know I could probably do this myself” Which is both true. Its easy and if I could do it so can you.

All in all, it really is a lot easier to install that I originally thought. Now I haven’t installed it yet but when I do you can find the video posted here sometime during the week. I’m not sure when the video will get released but it should be soon. So be on the lookout for that. Also if you haven’t already, check out the upcoming events tab to keep up with the events we will be at this year. Not all the events are listed, it will be updated periodically but a rough idea of where we will be is up there.

I got a bit restless and started installing the tank in her car. I wont get into detail as to how its done just yet, you can catch that in the video.