But it was almost aerodynamically serendipitous that fitting air suspension also meant that I had installed front and rear height sensors.
Why? Because when I fitted the front and rear aerodynamic undertrays, I started getting dash warnings for low ride height!
Huh? Let's take a few steps backwards.
When first setting up the air suspension, I'd been worried that something would go wrong without my noticing, so I had configured warnings like:
- low tank pressure
- high tank pressure
- low ride height
- high ride height
The Motec dash allows these warnings to be configured in plain English, and in addition I can flash red lights when they occur. I set all this up, and it all worked fine - no warnings.
Then, when I fitted the undertrays and went for a drive, I immediately got the 'low ride height' warnings! Repeatedly, and at any speed over 100 km/h (~60 mph). That's when I realised the undertrays were providing real, measurable downforce.
After that, I realised I could disable the 'automatic' aspects of the air suspension (auto lowering, etc) and directly measure lift and downforce - just by looking at the dash display.
(Dr Wolf of Porsche, when giving feedback on my book, also commented that Porsche had used the same approach - measuring ride height on the road to determine lift and downforce.)