Thread: Planned Upgrade of Stock Standard TD5

Whilst it sounds interesting how do they get the Airbag in the spring? the bag looks a lot bigger than the internal space of the spring.

Easy.
You let all the air out and fold the airbag over by standing on it or similar , hold it tightly, then slip it into the spring and let it resume its normal shape.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Easy.
You let all the air out and fold the airbag over by standing on it or similar , hold it tightly, then slip it into the spring and let it resume its normal shape.
Regards PhilipA

THinking about it more, can see the bag getting in there but then unless the spring was 'tied' down somehow, the bag would extend and dislodge the spring from its seating and if the bag was secured, the spring would be working against the bag to extend and then, can the spring extend as far as the ORM or more importantly the EM?

Geez I think you are overthinking things.
when the spring is extended off the car the airbag is much shorter than the spring.
That is why the suppliers usually send a couple of sets of spacers for the bottom.

i used to use a spacer which gave about 10-15 mm space from the top with the car empty and that gives a good ride around the suburbs.

when the spring is placed back on the car the airbag will automatically rest in the correct position as it has no air in it. It is possible to just lever it into position anyway when it has no air in it.

My main concern with them was that I always thought that they had to cut down upward articulation but this was denied by the makers, but I still think that. I even tried to run a valve between them for off road sort of like the cross linking on a D3 up.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Geez I think you are overthinking things.
when the spring is extended off the car the airbag is much shorter than the spring.
That is why the suppliers usually send a couple of sets of spacers for the bottom.

i used to use a spacer which gave about 10-15 mm space from the top with the car empty and that gives a good ride around the suburbs.

when the spring is placed back on the car the airbag will automatically rest in the correct position as it has no air in it. It is possible to just lever it into position anyway when it has no air in it.

My main concern with them was that I always thought that they had to cut down upward articulation but this was denied by the makers, but I still think that. I even tried to run a valve between them for off road sort of like the cross linking on a D3 up.
Regards PhilipA

You’re talking about 2 different things....

Phillip - you’re referring to helper bags

OP is referring to factory SLS bags.

Now it makes sense! Had actually gone out and had a look at the airbag and sort of assumed if I had a 2"+ spring, then it would be this long compressed plus this plus the 10-15 mm plus whatever size the spacers were.

Originally Posted by RRT

So this leaves me with just a tune to go, oh and the trickster thingy for the boost.

You shouldn't need this. It's an old way of doing business and there's superior methods now through the ECU software tune rather than adding in additional electrical complications that can fail.

Originally Posted by pojir

Btw there's people running the stock airbags protected by a piece of old firehose inside the coil springs... So you can have both at the same time.

I don't think this is accurate. The stock airbags mounts where the coil springs would and would be too larger. I believe you are referring to aftermarket helper springs which do not operate the way that SLS do - very different product.

Nope, I'm really referring to what I wrote: Upravy pro D2 - Stranky 8 - CZECH LAND ROVER FORUM

Originally Posted by pojir

Nope, I'm really referring to what I wrote: Upravy pro D2 - Stranky 8 - CZECH LAND ROVER FORUM

There you go, my apologies.

However, it's certainly not as simple as just slipping the airbag into a set of coil springs and off you go.
The SLS airbag when inflated bulges out larger than the top cap which is therefore larger than the ID of that coil spring.
While I assume the bottom spring mounts are the standard units just bolted underneath the airbag spacer the top must be a custom setup that slips over and pushed on the airbag top?

Overall, I'm not sure of what the benefit here is - your retaining the SLS system but concurrently inhibiting it from being able to function properly. At best your perhaps turning it into an automated version of a load helper airbag system? I would imagine it would have difficulty doing the fine tuning levelling that the SLS actually does when properly functioning.

Also of note is that according to the Google Translate he's only getting 4 years of life out of the airbags - perhaps due to their size being constrained by coil spring around them so constant contact?

I wonder what spring rate he is achieving and how effective the SLS is at doing anything at those much lower pressure levels.

The concept and thought is pretty interesting though.