 Bolting on the upper and lower...  Bolting on the upper and lower control arms is pretty straightforward. There are two sizes of sleeves for the lower control arms (9/16-inch and 1/2-inch). The lower control arms come from Air Ride with the 1/2-inch sleeves installed, but can be swapped to the larger diameter with the included sleeve set. After this, we ran the air lines through the frame rail before we bolted on the air springs. |  Bolting on the ShockWave is...  Bolting on the ShockWave is easy. The bottom mounts to the lower control arm with two aluminum spacers; the bolt goes through the control arm bracket and then through the 1/2-inch hole. Air Ride recommends you set the ShockWave to "7" on rebound and "3" on compression for the front as a starting point, then adjust as needed. |  Here's the complete RidePro...  Here's the complete RidePro compressor kit, part No. ARC4000e; it has a retail price of $1,099 and comes with everything you'll need including air lines, tank, compressor, solenoids, computer, and digital control panel. You need this to make the front and rear systems work. |
 Only thing left was to install...  Only thing left was to install the computer under the dash, the control panel in the interior, and all the other various parts in the trunk. The trunk-mounted parts are weather resistant and pretty tough. After all the systems were tested, we put the back seat into the Camaro and got g/28 ready for the track. |  Here's what g/28 looks like...  Here's what g/28 looks like parked with the bags "dumped." That's a pretty cool look considering it will corner with the best competing suspensions on the market. |  The hand-held control panel...  The hand-held control panel shows the air pressure in each of the four air springs. With a four-pad scale, it is possible to scale the cross-weights of the car so that they are even. Changes in individual corner ride height can fine-tune the handling characteristics on track, but we haven't even begun to play with this amazing tuning tool. Most aftermarket suspensions are non-adjustable, and only a coil-over can be fine-tuned like this-if you feel like lying on your back with a pair of wrenches. |
 On the track, the complete...  On the track, the complete Air Ride air suspension racked up its best aggregate numbers so far with an all-time best slalom speed of 46.48 mph and a combined skidpad number of .94g. | | |
Driving Impressions
PHR has featured plenty of air-bag equipped cars over the years, sometimes to the detriment of the magazine's performance reputation. Bottom line: lots of guys will just ignore a car with air bags as "poseur." We admit to having the same personal bias. Nevertheless, after years of gentle persuasion by Air Ride's Brett Voelkel, we finally agreed to drive some Air Ride-equipped cars on a road course. But like that dude in Green Eggs And Ham, we weren't super happy about it. That all changed after the first lap at Putnam Park Raceway. Since then, we've been angling to get an Air Ride system on Project g/28. So here we are. We noticed from the first street mile how well-mannered the Air Ride system is. There is apparently a small enough volume in the air spring such that the ride is not harsh at all (the spring rate of an air spring is roughly proportional to its volume). We then wondered: would softer spring rates effectively take the edge off g/28? All we can say is that Air Ride must've done its homework, because the range of shock valving is complimentary to the spring rate, neither over-controlling the air spring nor being overcome by it. The companion Hotchkis sway bar likewise works well to flatten the front of the car in corners. We still have yet to need a rear sway bar (second-gen Camaros seem to work better without one).
In testing, we noticed right off how sharp the cornering response was, although that must be partly attributed to our new Flaming River steering box. The recommended shock settings are pretty well dialed-in too, with our best results coming with those. Changing those settings (at least for the rear) does invoke a noticeable change in how quickly the rear sets into a "bite" mode. To wit, longer slalom gates (equating to higher speed corners) would almost surely require softer settings and shorter gates (similar to slower, autocross-like corners) firmer settings. Our second-gen Camaro project car goes exactly where we point it, which is comforting.
The only remaining question is to determine what the effect of ride height (i.e. air spring volume) has on spring rate. In theory, a lower ride height equals less spring rate, which is exactly the opposite of what you get when you cut a steel coil spring. Added to the lower spring rate is also the effect of a lower center of gravity, which makes it impossible to completely divorce the effects of the two. So far, neither has been a detriment to the handling of g/28: it works as well on the track as it does on the street. --Johnny Hunkins