Shockwaves

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

Has anyone used Air Ride's (Ridetech.com) Shockwave kit on thier Riviera? I noticed in the instructions that they want you to cut out a significant piece of the spring pocket wall for the bag. Is this unavoidable?

Thanks,

[mt65riv]

From what I've seen it is necessary.

I was just talking to a friend tonight about bagging my '65. He did his C-10 himself with parts bought at the local truck shop. With double convoluted bags you need the clearance so they don't get pinched. I think that even 'normal' bags need a lot cut out. NOT for the feint of heart (or people who change their minds).

I've got an extra frame if you want.

[steelman]

Define significant amount. Yes, you have to trim the pocket. Yes, it is required. When the bag is down all the way, the bulged bag sticks outside the frame. Needs to be trimmed so that the bag doesn't hit the frame. But it was more of a trim. Tapered cut from 0 at the edge to about 1" or less at the middle back to 0 at the trailing edge. Still plenty of spring pocket if you ever change your mind. Can be done with a torch, plasma, or grinder. Not sure you can tell it was done after you finish unless you had an unmodified one right next to it.

[steelman]

I thought I had a picture, but couldn't find it earlier. Here is the trimmed pocket with the uninflated bag on my car.

[steelman]

After posting the above picture, I see that this is from the inside of the frame, and the trimming was on the outside of the spring pocket. I have been looking and don't have a picture of the outside if the frame where the trimming was done with the front wheel removed. Sorry if this confused anyone.

[CTX-SLPR]

I was refferencing the instruction sheet:

http://www.ridetech.com/pdfinstructions/docs/SKW1015.pdf

I'm in the process of redesigning the front suspension (using the stock mounting points) and the reoccuring theme I get from the folks that are helping me out is that the spring is too close to the inner pivot point and too far away from the balljoint and suggest I cut the frame pocket to put the longest coil over as close to the ball joint as possible to minimize the spring rate required.

I'm trying to avoid the slippery slope of "trimming this" and "notching that" in the process but If I have to cut the frame for anything but a straight steel spring coil over in the stock position I might reconsider cutting the spring pocket.

Thanks,

[pyntre]

Coil Overs and Shockwaves are two differant animals...... you lost me on the last post..... my 65 is as low as it can go with Shockwaves in the front and Slam Specialties in the rear... If you dont trim the front pocket enough so that the bags dont rub you will be SOL quickly....:eek::eek:

[CTX-SLPR]

I'm trying to improve the horrible camber curve of the stock suspension and move to a more nuetral steering setup with near 0 scrub radius on the front. This means new control arms and spindles because I'm not willing to mess with the frame side.

I've wanted air ride so I can run it at a lowered height during average driving and then raise it up for things like driveways, speedbumps, or other obsticals. I was basing the ability to get away with no trimming on a HAMB post on installing air ride which he did not but he also didn't use shockwaves, rather a generic air coil over. I'm not too excited about the idea of cutting up the stock frame and I don't have a spare (and if I did I'd be grafting on an entire Corvette front suspension setup) so I was hoping to avoid it. It looks like however that I'd have to cut the frame for air ride and if I'm going to do that, it's worth thinking about trying to improve the spring geometry and to do so I'd have to probably loose the whole air ride idea since moving the spring attach point on the lower control arm out to somewhere around the brake reaction rod attach point would likely require removing the entire outer wall of the spring pocket.

[pyntre]

Wow !!!! All that is way over my head ...I have read some of your posts from the past year or so and can see you are completely reengineering the 60 's GM Buick. I can only say I built my 65 to become a 47 inch tall parker and WoW the crowd cruising down main street at posted speed limits , I can still crawl over speed bumps and air up for those steep driveways BUT this car was and never will be a canyon carver / drifter/ road course car. The whole X frame leaves the High horse traction grabbing 8 second ,1 g skid pad kinda animal ,,,well in another realm..... unless you are you ! And I mean that as a compliment! I just dont think there are very many , if any , folks on this forum that have ever reformulated a first gen Riviera to do what you are looking for it to do. Not that a lot of us wouldn't want our old Rivieras to do a 10 second quarter mile and keep up with a new Z06 Vette on the road coarse....but neither of those are very realistic unless you have Jay Leno kinda dough. I have a 05 GTO to go 150 mph + and its lotsa fun in the cloverleafs with zero mods ,and a dodge station wagon that scares the crap out of most folks when in flys by them ,and the Riv that goes slowly by ...with lots of 60's style and gets more loo:)ks than the other two , and you can't even hear it run !