Rear Suspension recommendations: Airbags or Leaf Springs? Or Both? For a 1200lbs popup camper

Interesting. Clearly you have the two systems working together and it's working well -- hard to argue with that. The only variable you haven't tried (or maybe you have) is your current setup without the lines tee'd together. I wonder if that would be a further improvement?

Years ago I added rear air shocks to a car that had a pretty good sized rear anti-sway bar. The car already handled quite well, I had added the shocks strictly for towing and to increase load carrying capacity, but the first time I hit an onramp (unloaded) I was astonished at the lack of body roll.

 

I thought about it a little bit more, and yes I think if they weren't tee'd together that I would have even less sway than I do now - but I don't believe they are a "sway multiplier". Tee'd together means that both bags are always at the same pressure, and air volume can be displaced evenly between the two if one bag is compressed more than the other. So as long as the bags are in contact with the axle, you will always have the same pressure from both bags exerted on both sides of the axle. They reduce sway because of the increase spring rate overall, but they shouldn't make the sway worse because you'll never see a condition where it puts more pressure on the inside of a roll than the outside.

If the bags weren't tee'd together, you would see an increase in pressure on the side you lean into and a decrease in pressure on the side you lean away from - which should reduce body roll more than if the bags were separate. I'm sure keeping the bags separate would help in truck camper setups where there's a lot of weight loaded up high.

 

How dare you attempt to have a reasonable, thoughtful exchange ideas with someone on the internet? Aren't we supposed to resort to name calling at this point?

I see what you're saying, the pressure remains equal side to side... but I think the increase in volume is what will lift the inside. Having said that, I certainly could be wrong... this conversation is way above my pay grade!

It would be interesting to take a vehicle equipped with tee'd airbags at X speed around an onramp, and measure the roll (it could be done with a level or even a smartphone). Then take the same vehicle at the same speed on the same onramp without tee's lines to see if it makes a difference. As you said, in theory in seems as though the non-tee'd setup would perform better. But it would be interesting.

 

Hah! Just wait until I pull the "as an engineer, let me tell you why you are wrong" card.

I am a 2.5 gen owner stealing airtime on a 1st gen forum after all.

 

I second that. Smooth ride when empty. Up to 40% more carrying capacity with the HD set. Important is that your tires are within the load capacity.

 

Absolute bunk.
I'm not an expert at anything in life, but I can say with a certainty that after owning 8 different Toyota truck camper combos (many of them depicted on the payload sticker thread) I can unequivocally state that these trucks haul small campers around effortlessly. I've done as much camper hauling in these trucks as anyone in the U.S. I like to think that my opinion counts.

In '04 I had a 1850lb Fleetwood Angler truck camper on a '96 T100 ext cab 4wd that I took from Alaska to Ontario, CA every year for several years. Flawless operation and overall decent fuel economy. Address the rear bags, bilstein shocks, heavy duty trans cooler and slotted rotors and the rest is gravy.

The Gen 1 also hauls wonderfully...

 

Are you an engineer?

 

The T100 was an incredible truck. I drove a 1993 3.0L V6 reg cab long bed for 8 years throughout high school and college, it also did double duty as the beater farm truck pulling firewood, tractors and mowers. It pretty much lived on midwestern gravel roads. It had helper springs, but we would egregiously overload it with firewood cab-high in the bed pulling a 16' flatbed packed full too. Put it in 4lo and it would chug right out of the river bottom, we didn't go very far with it though. The 3.0 V6 had NO power, but it carried weight better than it had any right to. Never even managed to wear out a rear axle bearing.

 

Professionally I'm just a construction worker, but I have a bachelor's in chemical engineering. Just having a degree doesn't make me a professional engineer, but I can poke fun at them.