Setting bag angles

When setting up airbag brackets up front, where should a person plan on the upper and lower bag plates being paralell throughtout the suspension cycle, at normal ride height? whats this do to the bag when its layed out compressed? any help would be great, im trying to setup my front brackets and having a tough time deciding what to do

I just set mine up parallel at fully laid out.  There is enough angle allowance between the top and bottom plates to have no problems throughout the suspension travel.  The easiest way is to just set your bottom bag, then use a piece of 2x3 steel since most bags compress to around 2.9" anyways.

Edited: 5/27/2010 8:02:24 AM by iLLblazer

I always set mine up to be fairly straight at ride height at its worked well. You will always be a little off laid out, and a little off at full lift, but your bag is going to see the most 'use' at ride height so i figure it makes sense to have the best angle there. The Firestone engineering manual allows a max 30° angular misalignment between the bag plates, and 1" of axial misalignment. I've never seen guidelines for any other brands so I just stick to these ones and it seems to work out good. So if you can set it up parallel fully laid out, and still have it reasonable when lifted, then I guess that works too. Personally I think it makes more sense to go with the happy medium that allows for a little bit of misalignment going up or down. Our dually project is a good example. With the tight arc I'm working with , you can see how the bag is slightly out of whack when laid out, but still well within 'range'.   However when its lifted, the angles are still well within range. (this pic is slightly past ride height, where the plates are perfectly aligned)  Had I set the bag up to be perfectly aligned when laid out, it would have been at much more of an extreme angle when lifted. Granted it may still have been within that 30° limit, but personally I think this looks far better.  With the truck I'm currently working on, the front suspension will put the bag from 25-30° out when laid out, to 25-30° out the opposite way when fully lifted. There's no way I could even try to do it fully aligned laid out and still get the travel I need out of the suspension without destroying the bag.

wow that frame work looks killer. when the bag is slightly misaligned and the bag is slightly laying into the bag plate, would this eventually cause wear on the bag where its touching them? when i setup a mazda on 18's we compressed the bag to paralell at "layed out" and it looks good all throughout the suspension cycle but on my 95 bird laying on 20's, its a different story.

Its rolling around the top plate a little but its not touching any metal. I dont see it being an issue. If the top plate was bigger and digging into the bag when it rolled over a little then it would be a different story. Post some pics of the issue you're having with your car.