1949 Chevy Custom Air Suspension - Suspending Belief

Poring over the RideTech literature I surmised that a general rule of thumb when it came to ride height was to have the airspring compressed by roughly a third. This makes sense when you think about it as you want more suspension when you hit a bump than a dip. With this in mind I needed to deduce where one third compression was exactly. While the following may not be the by-the-book method, it proved the easiest to photograph, and while the suspension travel is greater at the ball joints than the eyes of the ShockWave itself, the 1/3:2/3 ratio is still the same. With that said, picture 20 shows 14 1/2 inches from the jack to the bottom edge of the upper A-arm (which remains stationary throughout the following as there's no spindle connected!) with the ShockWave fully extended.

Picture 22, with full compression, gives a measurement of 10 1/2 inches. Using the 1/3:2/3 ratio, ride height should be just a tad below a measurement of 12 inches. Picture 21 shows the suspension at this ride height. All well and good, except the lower A-arm should also be level at ride height for optimum handling and suspension geometry, which you can see it is currently at full compression. The solution? Drop the lower ShockWave mount below where it is now, so the lower arm is level at ride height.

Not wanting to cut the crossmember apart, I figured out how far the ShockWave could go up into the "top hat" and still access the air fitting, which put the top mount just about level with the top of the "top hat". By cutting the coil mount off the threaded section, it meant I would still be able to use this for the top mount, though whether I'll need its adjustability with air suspension may prove irrelevant! Also, if the ShockWave were to be moved any higher into the "top hat" I'd have to trim it for clearance around the airbag and to access the fitting. At this height there's 1/4 inch of clearance between rubber and steel.

However, with the lower arm level, currently the ride height is still too high for my liking, so I'll fit 2-inch dropped spindles to bring it down a little. As you can see, this will put the zerk fitting on the lower ball joint 1 inch above the scrubline (an imaginary line drawn between the bottom of each wheel, minus tires, ensuring no part of the car can touch the ground even with four flat tires) I elected to lower the bottom ShockWave mount by 1 3/4 inches, keeping it a scant 1/4 inch above the scrubline.