I have seen it somewhere awhile ago, I was wondering if anyone has any info on it?
I seen a rockcrawler that had air bag suspension on it and he had some sort of gyro on his rig connected to some computer thingy that ran his air bags independently to compensate for body roll. Has anyone else seen this? Anybody done/know how to do it? I want to experiment with this on one of my projects.

Thanks

-Henry

You sound like you are talking about Offroad Only's AiRock system.

Its a computer controlled airbag setup that uses sensors on the control arms to determine the 'height'. Using the controller on the dash you can do some really silly things with the setup . I know Steve was thinking about adding a gyro to it a few years ago (mine has the port for one) but he hasn't gotten to it. I'm not real sure its necessary after driving it for a while.

We're currently adapting the setup to an XJ. Hope to be done in the next few weeks.

Fire away with questions if you like. I've had the setup on my TJ for 3 years now and have been a dealer for a few months.

Jason

yup...thats pretty much it Jason....

Now this is what I was thinking of doing with the system....
Instead of putting it on a car, I want to do it on a sandrail that I am designing...
Now it says the system is tied into the speed sensor as well as the ACU.....
The motor I plan on using on the buggy is a suzuki hayabusa motor out of a bike. Can it still be done, or no?...

One more thing....what is the reaction time of the system? is it a few seconds? milli-seconds??...

and what is the approximate weight of the whole system?

and if I wanted, could the system be ran with only half the system? (2 air bags and 2 shocks instead of 4 and 4)

sorry for all the questions....just curious...

Here's the website...ORO Airock Your best bet is to give Steve a call at ORO, he's a good guy who's always been happy to talk to me and answer my questions. I don't think you can get half the kit, but he may be able to work with you on it. You do need to have your own long arm system already installed, he recommends Rubicon Express or Nth IIRC.

quote:

Originally posted by Squid in a Jeep:
Here's the website...ORO Airock Your best bet is to give Steve a call at ORO, he's a good guy who's always been happy to talk to me and answer my questions. I don't think you can get half the kit, but he may be able to work with you on it. You do need to have your own long arm system already installed, he recommends Rubicon Express or Nth IIRC.

Squid, he'd going where no man has gone before No bolt on kits for him.

Response is more like a second or two than milliseconds. It will activate and level the front if I stand on the brakes, but can be a little slow for 'whoops' if that makes any sense.

I'd call and talk to Steve also to see what he can get ahold of (or if you like I can work with both of you).

The current ACU would probably have an issue only controlling 2 springs. I don't think it could get through its calibration without having all 4 working.

What is your goal? an active suspension or an easily adjustable ride height?

For a 4 spring setup, the ACU is fairly generic. It needs the speed sensor to turn it on to start (applying 5 volts to the correct wire would do likely do the same). it also needs to know when 20 and 40mph are to adjust the operation modes. It can calibrate itself so a particular speedo setup so as long as the signal from you speedo was fairly normal it could still work with that.

What sort of suspension layout? Independant front or rear? I'm not sure that he's tried it like that, but there's a chance that it might work. For the most part you just need a link in the suspension that will follow directly the arc of the wheel (meaning no double triangulated 4 links on a solid axle).

Jason
(purveyor of non-standard air bag lifts and thorn in Steve's side )

My goal is to mainly have an active suspension. Ride height isn't a big thing for me, but it would be nice to stiffen up the bags when coming down on a landing.

The front suspension is independant A-arms and in the rear It will be some sort of trailing arm.

As for calling Steve, I sent him an e-mail yesterday about what I want to do and he sounded very excited about the application. I will be calling him later on today with a whole load of questions.

..i'll be sure to mention you Jason, for directing me towards him.

attached is a view of the buggy I am designing so that you guys know what I am talking about.

2-small.JPG (24 Kb, 195 downloads) Buggy

quote:

Originally posted by Henry:
My goal is to mainly have an active suspension. Ride height isn't a big thing for me, but it would be nice to stiffen up the bags when coming down on a landing.

Now that might take some code tweaking on the controller. Its 'highway' mode tries to keep the jeep at a stable height. If I hit a 'speed hump' (think speed bumps that you can jump) too fast and unload the suspension it actually tends to let air out of the springs, then refil on landing. Seem to refil fast enough to keep from bottoming out in that instance, but I'm not sure how it would react if you had the suspension drooped for a second or two.

Steve is a good guy. I'm not sure where you are, but if you ever get a chance to see his shop in MN its a cool place.

Jason

yea, i'm over in good ol' Michigan.

I will talk to Steve and see if we can work something out with the system. I know for my application that some tweaking will be needed, so I will be interested to see what can be done.

and as for when its at full droop, the system would think that the vehicle is above ride height so it would let the air out. I guess if I have to, I can always add some limit straps in, but it will be interesting to see what happens when I come in for a landing....you said there is about a 1 second response time....so yea...hopefully I dont break my *** if I go ahead and use this system.