My setup has a small on board compressor and control for the bags. It's a nice setup for sure. Have to track down a small leak in the system when I install the cradles. No real pictures of the progress as I just didn't think about it when I started working. It was something I had planned to do but just kind of dropped the ball on.

 

what shocks did you use ?

 

agreed.

my plan to use a long travel air bump so i can free up the compression valving in the shocks.

because the air bumps spring rate can be adjusted via nitrogen pressure it allows me to tune the suspension to my needs.

the main purpose of the shock is to control the speed at which the suspension moves but a limitation on that is you have to have enough compression valving in the shock to keep from bottoming out, this is what limits how fast you can travel over rough terrain, make it stiff enough to not bottom out over rough terrain and you end up with a lousy ride on the street.

with air bumps i can tune the shock to ride great on the street and let the secondary shock ( air bump ) handle big hits off road or pot holes, speed bumps , curbs or whatever

the built in bumps on the AirRide bags are a good feature for off the shelf shocks as an occasional whoops should you bottom out but you wouldnt tune your shocks to use them regularly.

the stock excursion front suspension was designed around this method but not so much for off road or big hits but to give a nice street ride and occasional pot hole. it is why many if not most stock excursions blow the bump stops off the frame. the stock shocks fade to easily and that leaves you with just the bumps.... its like the ford engineers went to a off road desert race and liked the concrpt but forgot to use race quality parts that can withstand the abuse. its still a proven method and used on just about every off road race vehicle ever built.

 

i built the front of my Ex with air bumps but havent done the rear yet

 

I left the Ranchos XLs on for now. Will try the Bilsteins in the future, I have a set of 5100s in the garage. Really enjoying the ride so far. The Superlift kit I took off had 10 leaves on the front. Not surprising the front end was harsh.

grabbed some pictures while the wife a kids are at softball.








There is my setup now. Controller and compressor included.

 

right on.

be sure to ditch that rear sway bar, or at least try driving without for a while. ( i ditched both of mine ) with your shocks you may want the front but certainly try it without.

its easy enough to remove the bolt holding the link to the bar on the passanger side and zip tie the link up out of the way so you can test driving with and without the front bar working.

with those springs the rear sway bar is not needed and actually reduces ride quality and binds up and limits suspension travel..... let the big dog eat !

 

Sounds like a winner to me. I haven't had the front sway bar on for about a month, I've noticed no change in stability to this point, even with the other springs on there.