air ride vs coilovers on a street rod: does air actually ride better, and what fails
No. 1021Opened by air_ride_setupNov 23, 2025in Hot rod talk6 posts
air_ride_setupOPFired up#1
Lakeland, FL29 posts · joined Nov 20251940 Ford coupe, LS 5.3, bagged
40 Ford coupe, LS 5.3, bagged on a Mustang II-style front and a four-link rear. this is the honest air-versus-coilover thread because the last three i found online turned into a fistfight by post four and nobody said anything useful.
i have driven both. my old 34 was on coilovers and this 40 is on bags. the thing nobody tells you is that air does not automatically ride better, a badly set up bag car rides worse than good coilovers, it just rides low. the ride comes from the shock valving and the roll center, same as any car, and the bag only changes the spring rate and lets you park it on the ground.
so my question to the room is not air or coilover, it is: who has a bag setup that actually rides well on a real road, and what shock are you running with it, because i think that is the whole answer and everybody argues about the bags instead.
pro_touring_buildRoad worthy#2
Lincoln, NE74 posts · joined Nov 20251967 Camaro pro-touring, LS3, coilovers
this is the correct take and i will die on this hill with you. i run coilovers because i autocross the Camaro and i want one spring rate i understand, but i have ridden in bagged cars that rode beautifully and bagged cars that pogo over every tar strip, and the difference was always the shock and the four-link geometry, never the bag brand.
the trap with air is people set static ride height at the bottom of the bag's travel so they can lay out, and then the bag has no droop left and it rides like a brick. you have to set ride height in the middle of the bag's working range and give up a little bit of your slam to get a car that is not miserable at speed.
mod_wade_hModerator#3
Loveland, CO71 posts · joined Nov 20251931 Ford Model A coupe, flathead, juice brakes
moving nothing, this is a good thread, just adding the old-guy note. the first bag cars in the 90s rode awful and that is where the reputation comes from, and the parts are a generation better now. a modern bag with a quality adjustable shock and a thought-out link is a nice riding car. a kit bagged by a catalog and a prayer is not. same as everything else in this hobby.
brake_master_checkRoad worthy#4
Chattanooga, TN61 posts · joined Nov 20251934 Ford pickup, SBC, Wilwood discs
one thing from the brake side since air changes it. when you air out and air up, your brake proportioning does not move but your weight transfer and pad-to-rotor geometry sort of does, and more to the point people route brake hoses for ride height and then pinch or stretch them at full droop or full dump. check your flex lines at both extremes before you trust them. i have seen a hard line rub a control arm to a leak on a bagged car that was fine sitting in the driveway.
air_ride_setupOPFired up#5
Lakeland, FL29 posts · joined Nov 20251940 Ford coupe, LS 5.3, bagged
pro_touring_build wroteset ride height in the middle of the bag's working range
this fixed my car. i had it slammed at the bottom of travel and it rode like a shopping cart. raised static an inch and a half so the bag has droop, put a double-adjustable shock on it and spent an evening on the valving, and it rides like a real car now and still lays frame at a show. gave up an inch of slam and got a car i will actually drive to the show instead of trailering.
the manufacturer ride-height and shock-matching guidance is worth reading before you buy, Ridetech has the setup specs and the working-range numbers at ridetech.com and it is the stuff the forum fights skip right over.
thirtyfour_resto_modRolling chassis#6
Daytona Beach, FL18 posts · joined Nov 20251934 Ford coupe, 5.0 Coyote, IRS
filing this whole thread away, thank you. i kept my 34 on coilovers partly because every bag thread scared me off, and it turns out the threads were the problem, not the bags. the middle-of-travel thing is the first time air ride has made sense to me.
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