**PSA** Water trap location in an air system.

[Oxer]

This Public Service Announcement is brought to you by me.

When you are setting up a water trap in an air suspension system the reason for doing so is to trap water/particles before it goes into the valves, which can cause them to become faulty/fail.

Almost 85% of the setups I see, people put the water trap in between the compressor and tank. THIS IS 100% WRONG!

An air compressor over time generates heat when running for an extended amount. That hot air passes through the water trap and into the tank. Due to magic and witchcraft, when hot air becomes cold in certain climates, its causes condensation which builds up in the chamber of air aka tank.

Water traps should be located after the tank, before the valves, that way any condensation in the tank is stopped before the valves. It also doesnt hurt to put a check valve aka one way valve after the water trap, before the valves, incase of loss of tank pressure. that way it will assure you the car will stay in the air so you can drive to rectify the issue.

Again, the PSA has been brough to you by your friendly neighbourhood Oxer.

[Basketcase]

i assume you have used a check valve? because i used one on my compressor to tank line as i had a hard to fix leak just off compressor so when parked my tank would completely empty and need to be refilled every start up. i put the check in so when the car turned off, the tank would remain full and only the line would drain. problem with this, is that the line is always pressurized so a swing check never gets a chance to close unless there is a rapid loss of pressure on the source side (aka a valve for venting or something) and my leak was so slow that it wouldn't close and hold the air in the tank. curious how you got around that.

good info on the traps though. if you are running an Elevel or anything, they show them after the tank. but everyone ignores those instructions.

[Dudermagee]

Oxer, the smartest criminal i know.

[Oxer]

i assume you have used a check valve? because i used one on my compressor to tank line as i had a hard to fix leak just off compressor so when parked my tank would completely empty and need to be refilled every start up. i put the check in so when the car turned off, the tank would remain full and only the line would drain. problem with this, is that the line is always pressurized so a swing check never gets a chance to close unless there is a rapid loss of pressure on the source side (aka a valve for venting or something) and my leak was so slow that it wouldn't close and hold the air in the tank. curious how you got around that.

good info on the traps though. if you are running an Elevel or anything, they show them after the tank. but everyone ignores those instructions.

Most new viairs come with a check valve on the end of the braided line, also Im not sure what check valves you have used in the past, but I always use viair ones and have never had an issue with them leaking back through?

[martinm13]

Thank you sir. I already had my water trap between tank and valves but it is good to let people know. Most setups I have seen have it in the wrong place. I understand where this mentality comes from. Dudes that use steel tanks are worried about condensation causing rust in the tank. In this case, I would say run 1 on either side of the tank, or buy an aluminum tank.

[Alex@BagRiders]

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and say that it isn't wrong to put your water traps before the tank.

Yes, I do agree that a water trap after the tank will collect any particles and what have you before they enter the valves but we've tried just about every combination here at Bag Riders and traps before the tank do collect more water. AccuAir says to put the traps in between the tank and the manifold. We have it set up this way on Will's Jetta. He barely collects any water in the traps but he does collect a ton in his tank. Kevin's Subaru has the traps in between the compressor and the tank and he collects about 3 times more water in his traps than he does in his tank. Both of the cars are daily driven and their commute to work is comparable.

Personally I don't run water traps at all so I'm not biased one way or the other. From our experience in terms of collecting water, traps in between the compressor and the tank will collect the most water. In terms of collecting debris, traps in between the tank and the valves will collect everything. The best way to go about it would be to run water traps before and after your tank that way you ensure that you are collecting the maximum amount of water and debris from entering your valves.

[Oxer]

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and say that it isn't wrong to put your water traps before the tank.

Yes, I do agree that a water trap after the tank will collect any particles and what have you before they enter the valves but we've tried just about every combination here at Bag Riders and traps before the tank do collect more water. AccuAir says to put the traps in between the tank and the manifold. We have it set up this way on Will's Jetta. He barely collects any water in the traps but he does collect a ton in his tank. Kevin's Subaru has the traps in between the compressor and the tank and he collects about 3 times more water in his traps than he does in his tank. Both of the cars are daily driven and their commute to work is comparable.

Personally I don't run water traps at all so I'm not biased one way or the other. From our experience in terms of collecting water, traps in between the compressor and the tank will collect the most water. In terms of collecting debris, traps in between the tank and the valves will collect everything. The best way to go about it would be to run water traps before and after your tank that way you ensure that you are collecting the maximum amount of water and debris from entering your valves.

the reason that a trap between the compressor and tank will catch more water is due to the fact that the hot air passes through the filter, which in turn causes more condensation before it even reaches the the tank, hence why they appear to catch more water.

I posted this purely for setups using valve blocks, to ensure that they recieve the maximum life span.

No point in selling a kit with a vu4 and no water traps as if in the event the vu4 were to fail (Which is unlikely I might add) it causes headaches for the consumer and the seller of the kit