Rear only air ride.

[DieselDan]

Hey guys, this isn't something that I personally plan to do, but figured some here may consider it. I thought that at some point there was information floating around about having rear only air shocks, while allowing the fronts to be on coil springs. I searched for about an hour and couldn't find the information.

The pros to this setup would be:
-Less expensive than new air springs.
-New Shocks vs Rebuilt bags with old shocks. (Arnott)
-More easily accessible aftermarket performance shocks. (Tokiko)
-Easier to match the front shock performance to aftermarket rear shocks. (Cobra Bilsteins, for example.)
-Benefits of rear load leveling, since the rear air suspension still functions.

Disadvantages:
-No more easy adjustability of front ride height.

Those are most of the points I can think of. It would also be cheaper to only have to convert the front. I know this has been done, but not sure what is needed to make it work. This is an option some might consider if they like their car to always be perfectly level, but also ditch the PITA front air bags.

Hoping someone might chime in with some info?

 

[Lux]

Its so much easier to convert the rear only to spring.

The air ride computet pumps front then back. Gonna be more trouble then its worth probably, i looked into it on mine while the fronts started leaking down.

Probably not worth it

 

[billcu]

Rear only airsprings is easy with switches, bypassing the air ride computer.

I just took the airsprings out of the front of my black winter car for now, and put my old coils in. I'm using those (newer) front airsprings in my 97 for the summer.

The rear is still pumped up fine on the black car, I'll wait until it sags a bit to mess with it, but I'm going to try to put the front sensors in the right position so the rears get pumped up automatically once the sensors report the correct front height. I'm not sure if I can get that to work, but I'll give it a try.

 

[Moes8]

i have been using front coils, and rear air for a little over 1 year now, switch is off, when back rises or lowers (from cold weather to hot) i just flip the switch for a minute and all is level again, i love it, only thing that would be better is if i could leave the switch on, but i cant,or occasionally it drops the rear all the way down.

 

[97 Octane]

Octane has been on this hybrid setup since I got her running. Fronts on coils and rears on air with no problems except when it gets cold out. Then the rears drop a little bit.

 

[the1andonlyGR81]

you could always use springs and a set of air shocks!and have both and be adjustable.