AIRBAG question(s) for those owning F450's

[msutoad]

Good Morning folks-
Hope everyone had a good weekend.

I am not a Full-timer but we do alot of pulling our Momentum, as well as our 40 foot living quarters horse trailer. We love our 2020 F450, and have the Bilstein 5100's on it which made a huge difference.
With all the pulling we do, I am beginning to consider air bags for the truck and wanted to get some testimonies/advice from this group on what are people running (Brand, PSI, etc) and was it worth it to spend the time and money to add them to their rigs? We run with a goosebox on the Momentum, so there is a little bit of air-ride relief, and I have a Gen-Y torsion flex coupler on my horse trailer, again some suspension relief. Wondering if the air bags will bring even greater ride comfort to the overall setup? I do not have a capacity problem with either trailer in terms of payload or overall the weights for the TV.

Any opinions and thoughts from those having implemented bags, the do's, the don'ts, the challenges, the brand, did you do onboard compressor or do you inflate manually before and after a pull, what PSI do you run and with what load being pulled etc.

Thanks in advance to you all.

Best-
Jason

[Conner58]

We have sumo springs love them no maintenance put them on and forget it .
Some people love their air bags some like timberlands
Just fyi .

[Whitexc]

***Not 450 related but bag related***

I have Timber Grove bags on my Ram. Limited time towing and hauling so far but install was very simple. They replace the factory bump stops. I opted for manual fill as the truck isn’t my daily and once set up for camping duty it won’t see much else. I can tune them easily between 5 and 100 psi with my Ridgid 18v compressor.

[Overtaxed]

I have Airlift 5000's on my 2019 F450. They help towing, no question. I also have the 5100's, and they made a huge difference as well. I'm actually going to sell my 5000's soon because I need to move up to the 7500's (got a bigger/heavier rig), so if you have any interest, I know where you can get a set of the 5000's cheap.

I didn't do onboard air, I just use a little handheld air compressor (Bauer) that's uses a 20V battery. Works great, and since I only air up when towing, it's not a big deal at all. With my 351M, I typically towed with about 60PSI in the bags. The general rule, every 10PSI lifts 500 lbs. My 351 had a pin weight of ~3000lbs, so 60PSI was about right to get me back to stock height and get all the travel back in the suspension.

So, yes, I do think it's worth it, so much so that I'm going to do a 2nd install to upgrade them to a heavier set.

[Hoopy Frood]

Wow, hard to believe you needed air bags with that 450 and the 351. Our 3500 rides perfectly with the stock suspension, with a pin weight of 3,020 lbs. Go figure.

Our 3500's GVWR is 14,000 lbs. and fully loaded, ready to go weighs in at 11,980 lb. The ride is excellent, with basically no jarring from the trailer over railroad tracks or bridge approaches. 'Course it does ride a bit rough unloaded.

[msutoad]

Wow, hard to believe you needed air bags with that 450 and the 351. Our 3500 rides perfectly with the stock suspension, with a pin weight of 3,020 lbs. Go figure.

On my 450 with a 381m, I do not need the bags for right height, I am looking for quality of ride . I have a set of Timbrens on the way to try and based on that, I will either get the 7500XL’s or keep the Timbrens.
I will update the thread once I have the data.

I have 20K miles to click off between now and Christmas, so lots of windshield time, and looking to compliment the 5100’s. I also am upgrading to a 397 THS, which will be a little heavier on the PIN too …

[Overtaxed]

Wow, hard to believe you needed air bags with that 450 and the 351. Our 3500 rides perfectly with the stock suspension, with a pin weight of 3,020 lbs. Go figure.

Our 3500's GVWR is 14,000 lbs. and fully loaded, ready to go weighs in at 11,980 lb. The ride is excellent, with basically no jarring from the trailer over railroad tracks or bridge approaches. 'Course it does ride a bit rough unloaded.

"Need" is a strong word. With the 351M, I was nowhere near the overloads. But the airbags made it better, getting me pretty much right back to unloaded height and giving me all the suspension travel back. It was quite a bit more comfortable towing with the bags. Pin weight on the 351M was right around 3K, so pretty similar to what you've got despite being smaller.

[Hoopy Frood]

Gotcha. We "needed" the air bags on our 2001 Dodge dually.

[Pap and Mimi]

I added Air Lift 5K and the on-board compressor to my F250 and love the flexibility they give me. I pull camper, dump trailer, equipment trailer...... and have the ability to match the tongue weight that is present on any given day. I levelled the truck to clear the 12.5 x 35's, so I use the air bags to keep the truck level (headlights) when loaded.

attempted humor... I really like that the bags added 5,000 pounds of payload capacity to my truck....

[msutoad]

I added Air Lift 5K and the on-board compressor to my F250 and love the flexibility they give me. I pull camper, dump trailer, equipment trailer...... and have the ability to match the tongue weight that is present on any given day. I levelled the truck to clear the 12.5 x 35's, so I use the air bags to keep the truck level (headlights) when loaded.

attempted humor... I really like that the bags added 5,000 pounds of payload capacity to my truck....

So glad you found the solution to get that Payload to what you needed too!!
LOL