I just cut and pasted this out of my thread in the suspension forum after some one told me this is the best place for my question.
My application's probably a little different than most of ya'lls:
This isn't a show truck, it's a serious swamp runner, but I've heard this is the place to go to figure out my suspension.The deal is with this tall of leaf springs. They're really stiff and I needed traction bars to control springs wrap. So terrible ride and very little flex.
Occasionally I hit a deep mud hole that drops off unevenly and I worry about flopping on my side. With this I could level out. I could go lower all together in some situations where all be goin' crazy. And I can drop it alot lower for gettin' in and out, and I could go a little higher than ride height for really deep stuff or just to be cool.So I'm already in the process of doing a 4 link, and after hours of searching. Someone suggested hybrid hydraulic system controlled by bags. It's been done on a few tall trucks but other than a few pics that I couldn't see enough detail in, I haven't got the right info from them.Another guy told me this was the place to go for this kind of stuff. I've seen some setups but they weren't quite enough info and my setup will be a little different.
After talkin' to guys who've experienced some of the 4x4s with this system and a few engineer friends who off-road, we've got an idea, but I really want to do it right.
So the plan is to use hydraulic tie rod cylinders at each corner to a shorter cylinder with a larger bore under the bed. This way I can get a mechanical advantage from the bag.Without serious math an example would be: 2" bore 20" stroke at each corner connected to a 4" bore 10" stroke mounted in a cradle under the bed connected to a heavy duty bag with a 10" stroke. So the bag would compress the horizontal cylinder 1" and the ones at the corners would extend 2".(this is just an example that might not be exact)
So I need to figure
out:1) the ideal size cylinders to match.2) are you connected both the ports on the cylinder to the other cylinders port? or just the top ones(a friend suggest putting schrader valves on the lower port and adding nitrogen to tune the shock effect)3)any advice you have
I'd love to see some pics. If you've run this what did you like what would you do different. Tips, ideas, whatever.
If you have a buddy running this setup send him this way.