Adjustable ride height.

Big Red brought up the concern about CG in my 2.2 Nationals build thread.

The way to have great ground clearence and low CG is to be able to adjust the ride height.

RCC rules state that the shocks must be fixed to the chassis. However there is no restriction on changing preload by remote.

So to do this by remote I thought about this:

I know that I can find some Festo valves to do this but I would have to run a CO2 cartridge as a source of pressure and then dump the pressure once I wanted the truck lower. Hmm and as shocks I could use short strock liniar actuators and SMC valves can run on 11.1V.

Hmm.

These are a touch to big but would work for a super as air shocks.
http://cgi.ebay.com/SMC-Air-Cylinder-NEW-6-pcs-250-psi-1-1-16-Bore_W0QQitemZ230156353090QQihZ013QQcategoryZ67010QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Note that it is a single action, which means you can use a central dump valve.

Now I just have to find a three position valve (closed, and open to source, open to exhaust) and you have an air ride system for a crawler. Maybe there even is one that is servo control?

To regulate the max pressure on the system, I can just add an adjustable blow off valve in the line to the actuators.

So opperation could be;
1. no pressure (closed exhaust) would act like a droop setup
2, no pressure (open exhaust) act like shocks with out springs
3. Partial pressure provided by giving a couple shoots of CO2
4. full pressure, regulated by popoff valve.

sounds like a good theory.hope it works out for ya.

they even look like shocks. well kinda anyway.

Hey Tony

I do not have the time or funds to do this right now. Its just an idea. Maybe someone else on our board has thes actuators and access to pneumatic controls and can pioneer this.

That would be really cool.

Just for clarification, a winch cable attatched to the axle was deemed illegal in the last revision of the rules right?

check out www.servocity.com

on your super build you had (lets just deal with the front suspention right now) two arms bolted to the chassis and your shocks were mounted to the end of the arms. If you had those arms hinged to the chassis, not bolted and had a servo on the other end that would lower or raise those arms, would it still be illegal?

You wouldnt be moving the axle...you would technically be moving the chassis.

a suspension that almost drags the ground, but can be raised to above the axles if necessary would be ideal. and indepenant front and rear tuning would ne nice so you could adjust for hill ascent and descent.

Winching axles on a single point per axle is legal.

I think the hinged shock mount is exactly what the rules state to be illegal.