Pushing Boundaries! Custom Air Suspension on a Lucid Air!

Keeping Creature Comforts, Even When Gas is Gone!

When it comes to the higher-end, more expensive electric vehicles, they usually come with upgraded suspension for optimal handling. For cars like this 2023 Lucid Air Touring owned by RJ Silva with Eye Kandy Designs, every option box was checked from the factory. RJ ordered this car to get the exact accessories he wanted, but one that didn’t come factory on the car was adjustable air suspension. While several of the Tesla electric vehicles have direct bolt-on air suspension, no one had attempted to swap out the stock Lucid suspension, which left RJ on the hunt to make it happen. RJ is no stranger to custom vehicles, as he has had past SEMA builds and works heavily in the aftermarket industry creating work for multiple companies. As soon as RJ took possession of the car, a plan to get the car as low as possible was set into motion. He reached out to Adam Madrigal at AMF Garage in Las Vegas to see if it was even possible to swap the factory suspension for air suspension. Once Adam was able to inspect the setup, they immediately started contacting companies to piece together the parts needed. At this point, the car had just acquired a SEMA ’23 booth spot and needed to have the suspension complete before the show, which was less than two months away.

RJ got with Air Lift Performance and ordered the air management needed to control the new suspension height options. He started with two Viair 444 compressors (P/N: 44442 with a $350 retail), a 24-inch FLO air tank (P/N: 15224 with a $320 retail), an 18-inch FLO air tank (P/N: 15218 with a $305 retail) and the Air Lift 3P manifold (P/N: 27780 with a $1,595 retail). That handled the controlling of the suspension, so now for the fun part, trying to get the struts figured out. After a call to Universal Air, they said they would handle designing and cutting the correct strut mounts and front bags as well as the mounts for the rear bags and once they finalized it, it would be a standard kit they offer with a $1,876 retail price. Now that the suspension components were enroute, a new set of wheels and tires was needed to complete the desired look. For this, Vossen Wheels stepped in to provide the 22-inch HF-8 wheels and Lexani Tire supplied the 255/30-22 tires. Being this is the first bagged Lucid Air, a lot of measuring and double-checking specs was required to make sure all of this was going to work together.

With right at three weeks before the required SEMA debut, the car and all parts were dropped off with AMF Garage for Adam to tear the car apart, get measurements and take several factory parts to Universal Air for them to work their magic. While they were handling the machining work, Adam was getting the air management installed and all the required air lines and power harness installed to ensure the tight schedule would work. As you can see, this one-off designed suspension does what it is supposed to, lays the car out for shows and gives more clearance than factory when aired up. Once the car was finished and all fitment was confirmed, Universal Air now has the front struts and rear bag assemblies available for sale for your Lucid Air.

Follow along as we go through the install process, which included the prototyping for the kit that’s now on the market.