Ride height with AlfaOBD (air suspension)

[MrDazana]

Recently got AlfaOBD and an mx+ to make several changes to my truck, especially to the Air ride system. I created this post to centralize ASCM information and hopefully find others that are playing with the system and were successful in finding a good setting.

I had a 1" drop of the front left, which seems to be common among the Air ride family, and after playing with the ride height settings in alfaobd i was able to get this down to 1/4" on the front right. My settings used are 80/70/65/55. This allowed the 35" tires to no longer rub but truck still has a small rake.

Changing the settings beyond what i put seems to make no changes. Example i tried setting the ride height to 100/90/65/55 and no changes were noticed to front end.

Using 100/90/70/60 gives me a 3/4" drop on the front right and and 1/2" drop to the rear left.

I do not have the original settings before making changes. If anyone has them please post them here.

 

[MrDazana]

E-mailed the developer of alfaodb about this setting and this is what he responded

"The procedure writes the height values for each air spring to the suspension control unit memory. The procedure first sets the suspension to calibrated normal height. At this point you need to measure the heights for each spring and enter them to the app. The app writes the heights and sets the suspension to calibrated normal height. This helps the control unit to correctly set the heights on each spring, it should fix the leaning issue. "

 

[MrDazana]

I found the following procedure to properly calibrate.
Judging from the spec sheet, i wasn't to far off

 

[MrDazana]

bellow are settings i took from my truck ( to the right) and to the left a buddy who has the stock settings from dealer

Front Left Calibrated Height: 53 mm \ Front Left Calibrated Height: 80 mm
Front Right Calibrated Height: 54 mm \ Front Right Calibrated Height: 70 mm
Rear Left Calibrated Height: 53 mm \ Rear Left Calibrated Height: 62 mm
Rear Right Calibrated Height: 49 mm \ Rear Right Calibrated Height: 52 mm
Front Left Ride Height Sensor: 25.00 mm \ Front Left Ride Height Sensor: 9.00 mm
Front Right Ride Height Sensor: 27.00 mm \ Front Right Ride Height Sensor: 12.00 mm
Rear Left Ride Height Sensor: 11.00 mm \ Rear Left Ride Height Sensor: 10.00 mm
Rear Right Ride Height Sensor: 40.00 mm \ Rear Right Ride Height Sensor: 11.00 mm
Front Left Calibration Offset (Raw): 190 \ Front Left Calibration Offset (Raw): 212
Front Left Calibration Offset: 246 mm \ Front Left Calibration Offset: 224 mm
Front Right Calibration Offset (Raw): 183 \ Front Right Calibration Offset (Raw): 178
Front Right Calibration Offset: 253 mm \ Front Right Calibration Offset: 2 mm
Rear Left Calibration Offset (Raw): 170 \ Rear Left Calibration Offset (Raw): 182
Rear Left Calibration Offset: 3 mm \ Rear Left Calibration Offset: 247 mm
Rear Right Calibration Offset (Raw): 160 \ Rear Right Calibration Offset (Raw): 170
Rear Right Calibration Offset: 13 mm \ Rear Right Calibration Offset: 3 mm

 

[MrDazana]

I played with the suspension alot this week-end to fully understand and help others try to resolve their issue on their own. Every time i changed the settings, I turned the ignition to off and back to run, and then in the U-connect i set the suspension to transport mode. Then i removed it and set the ride high one step at a time until off-road and then used the uconnect to set the suspension to wheel alignment. Then i took my measurements. My point of reference i used was the bumper at each corner.

So to gets things rolling, I first used the diagram above and measured my ride height on each 4 corners. This gave me the following results: 156mm front and 125mm rear. I set those parameters in ALFAOBD and proceeded to set the suspension in transport mode... I was expecting for it to go down to entry, instead it was raising the truck all the while telling me in the dash in was lowering. I let it go for 30 secs and stopped the process by turning ignition to off and back on. Realizing the suspension didn't like that, I went back into ALFOBD and set the parameters i had before. So this method which i was hoping to fix the lean issue did not work. I'm adding this here as a lessened learned.

What worked for me:

My truck has 35x12.5x20 tires so my measurements might not be the same as yours. Before starting this , read your system info on the ASCM and take notes of the ride height measurements determined by the dealer. its about half way down. This will be your go to if this goes south. Find yourself a nice large parking lot thats leveled.

I reset my measurements to the factory specs that came from my buddys truck. Using 53/54/53/50 ( ALFOBD will not set anything bellow 50) I measured my 4 corners and had (in inches) 29.8 FL, 31.2 FR, 32.2 RL, 32.1 RR.

The current settings I put into the ASCM are the following:

85/70/68/55

This gave me a 2 inch lift in the front and 1 inch in the back. My measurements are now 32.2 FL, 32.5 FR, 33.2 RL, 33.1 RR. The truck still has a bit of rake, but not enough for my OCD to kick in. I no longer see a lean in the front left so i accomplished what my dealer couldn't fix.

The ride quality did not diminish but I did need a wheel alignment. From what I gathered on the net using leveling links, the front end can raise up to 2.5" from factory state, but the ride quality will be stiffer. I drove into work this morning and took my measurements again. About the same as above and no lean !

 

[jessie_m]

Very useful info, thanks for sharing. Have the mx but haven't pulled the trigger on AlfaODB yet. Thankfully no lean on my rebel but 2" difference between front and back that i might look to remedy someday.

 

[bmac0805]

Am I understanding right that you were able to adjust the height of your suspension out of "normal" parameters?

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[MrDazana]

Am I understanding right that you were able to adjust the height of your suspension out of "normal" parameters?

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

yes. by 2"

 

[bmac0805]

yes. by 2"

No error messages?? Thays awesome.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[MrDazana]

No error msg's! keep in mind though that i had a 1" drop ( lean) on the left side so my settings might not work for you as well. With my setting's I gained 2" front left, 1"front right and 1" on both rear

 

[chrisbh17]

Gotta love what dealers claim is normal (or "cant fix").....so is your truck broken now that its level?

 

[BWL]

I've always had the front left down .75" so I'm very interested in trying this. May have to get alpha.

 

[TonyMM]

No error msg's! keep in mind though that i had a 1" drop ( lean) on the left side so my settings might not work for you as well. With my setting's I gained 2" front left, 1"front right and 1" on both rear

That’s great!
So you are basically running in off road setting.
I suppose that you can nit achieve anymore the off road max setting, right? (Not sure if you should try actually!!!)

 

[bmac0805]

No error msg's! keep in mind though that i had a 1" drop ( lean) on the left side so my settings might not work for you as well. With my setting's I gained 2" front left, 1"front right and 1" on both rear

Any way of seeing what values are entered to each airbag prior to changing them?

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[bmac0805]

No error msg's! keep in mind though that i had a 1" drop ( lean) on the left side so my settings might not work for you as well. With my setting's I gained 2" front left, 1"front right and 1" on both rear

Any way of seeing what values are entered to each airbag prior to changing them?

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[MrDazana]

That’s great!
So you are basically running in off road setting.
I suppose that you can nit achieve anymore the off road max setting, right? (Not sure if you should try actually!!!)

I can still acheive offroad mode 2. This gives me another 1/2"

 

[MrDazana]

Gotta love what dealers claim is normal (or "cant fix").....so is your truck broken now that its level?

no its not broken. Everything works fine. I did need a alignment

 

[BWL]

So did you just change values for normal mode and the other 3 stayed the same?

 

[MrDazana]

yes.

Any way of seeing what values are entered to each airbag prior to changing them?

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

After you conmnect to the ASCM. go read the system info. About halfway down, you see the ride height for each air bag

 

[MrDazana]

So did you just change values for normal mode and the other 3 stayed the same?

The settings changed are for normal mode only. You can't modify the other ride heights. The computer reads the ride height sensor information and it adjust accordingly. If you gained in height in normal mode, the other levels will be higher. In my case, the entry mode is now normal ride height.