Calling all Shock Gurus :)

[Peteoz]

I have my new Wilber shock on the rear, sort of (that's a story for another time once it's fully sorted;) ), but I have a question on the Spyder air bag. Is that simply all it is, an independent (of the shock) air bag that sits between the frame and the seat to further insulate the rider from the road?

I ask as the new Wilber rear shock works very well by itself, and I thought I might drop the bag pressure down from 50 to say 35-40 to provide a little more personal rear end comfort.

Pete

[Peter Aawen]

....Is that simply all it is, an independent (of the shock) air bag that sits between the frame and the seat to further insulate the rider from the road?...


Effectively, YES! And what you're proposing should work. :thumbup:

However, at least on the RT's, they also have the ACS set-up which allows you to vary the 'static load height' that the air bag will try to maintain under your Spyder regardless of the load imposed. Soooo, you might need to fiddle with that a little if you are going to use the Wilbur to do all that instead, or you may find the two systems sorta arguing with each other about how they want to influence ride height &/or firmness. ;)

[Peteoz]

Effectively, YES! And what you're proposing should work. :thumbup:

However, at least on the RT's, they also have the ACS set-up which allows you to vary the 'static load height' that the air bag will try to maintain under your Spyder regardless of the load imposed. Soooo, you might need to fiddle with that a little if you are going to use the Wilbur to do all that instead, or you may find the two systems sorta arguing with each other about how they want to influence ride height &/or firmness. ;)

Thanks Peter......luckily the 2016 F3-L is a manual air bag system so they should play together nicely :thumbup:

Pete

[Peteoz]

The air ride setup accomplishes a few things.

It maintains a predetermined ride height. As long as the coil spring is sufficiently soft, the air spring can control ride height.

The air spring has the ability to increase or decrease spring rate for loaded conditions to lessen or prevent bottoming.

The air spring provides a rising rate to the combined spring rate, this can lessen the wallowing effect on suspension designs like the Spyder that have no appreciable designed in rising rate.

With a means to adjust spring preload via the hydraulic preload adjuster, you will need to sort out and dial in the optimum balance between the two springs. As a guess for starting point, I would begin with 50% race sag and use the air to tune from there. Then test 40%, then 30%. Anything less than 30% the airspring is pretty much removed from the setup unless the rider is well above 225lbs with gear.

Thanks very much, PMK. At 6'7" and 300lbs, I am indeed well above 225lbs even WITHOUT gear :D

Pete