Questions involving a future bag setup, question #2

Hi,

I was wondering what the average size of the air tanks that members here are using on their trucks. Is there such a thing as using a tank that is too big or lines that are too big? I remember someone posting on here about using smaller fittings going into the bags to slow down the air pressure release, but are there any advantages running larger lines to the valves themselves?

Reason I ask, I was pondering running the grease converted AC compressor to fill a spare 16 gallon tank from a dead air compressor. I am undecided on what line size I would be running, either 1/2" or 3/4" copper. This is still very early in the planning stage

The bigger the tank, the more "play time", but the longer it takes to fill.
3/4" line is pretty large... usually used for "hoppers". I'd say the majority of people use 3/8" or 1/2" valves and airline. Sometimes I've seen people using 5/8".
Personally, I run 3/8" valves and 1/2" airline, and it's still pretty fast popping up. I use drilled out plugs in the dump valves to control it from dropping too fast and slamming the frame on the ground.

Most of the tanks in the air ride industry have 1/2" bungs for fittings. I would think the more bungs, the better... so you don't have to T a bunch of stuff off of one. Keep in mind you'll need one for a pressure switch, compressor(s), rear bags - Fill, front bags - Fill, drain cock, etc. Granted you can T some of them together, but others cannot.

i had a sanden 508 converted to a greased filled EDC and all 1/2 lines and a 12 gal tank. it would fill the 12gallons very fast. 0-200 psi in under 4 minutes. so i didnt have any issues. BUT if you ran a electric compressor setup i think the rule of thumb is 1 compressor per 3 gallons

This is a great fill time calculator that my friend made.

hmm, so with a 16 gallon tank filling to 200 psi would take me about 5 minutes, that isn't too bad, I think that is faster than what the compressor did when it was in top working condition at 150 psi. By no means would I run an electric compressor. Nice information to know, thanks much

One other thing Emjay.

I would put a check valve in each separate line to each wheel. The tech's at Ridetec told me this would improve handling.

What happens without the check valve is that when you take a deep turn at speed, the bag on the wheel of the outside turn will push the air out, and into the bag for the wheel on the inside of the turn which isn't what you want.

Also, has anyone made a bracket to run the modded AC Sanden compressor to mount on the rear end? All you would need is a switch, and hot wire to turn the compressor on and off.

You don't really need a check valve. It doesn't make that much of a difference at least from my experience. Check valve or not, going through a hard turn is going to increase the pressure on one side, making the bag compress.

There have been people that have ran a compressor off the rear end but it isn't really practical since the vehicle has to be in motion and it looks really ugly lol

I wasn't really planning on trashing mine out with fast turns, it is only a 2.0 low boost diesel.

Ok, I shall begin with the next round of questions.

The setup that I envision for my truck's future will be a little bit lower than stock when parked and off, say maybe 1" or 2" lower. When the truck is on and at ride height I would like it to be at the stock height, with the possibility to go an inch or two higher than stock upon demand.

Is such even possible or am I not thinking about this right?

Discuss my fellow brethren

Oh it's more than possible, you can easily get 10-15" of Stroke with a standard set up.