Is anyone able to confirm that "Lows" are using a shorter kingpin compared to Standard AF1s?
If so, in theory standard AF1s should could run a low kingpin and low top bushing and be the optimized AF1 without going Inverted.
Is there any drawbacks to using a shorter top bushing? Less responsiveness or bounce back maybe?
To add to this, mainly more with the shorter top bushing options, which I have extensive experience now.
Overall shorter tops can still perform pretty much the same as any other regular top, but I found I need to have a much flatter or smaller top washer, or at the very least a thinner lip on the washer, as it will tend to bind on the hanger way more easily than a taller top bushing arrangement. It is that binding that prevents maximum turn on any truck I have skated.
I have low top bushings from the old Indy aftermarket line, as well as the Venture loose bushing kit, but I have also cut down or reshaped a lot more bushings just to see how they work, with surprisingly good results, for the most part. Yes I have definitely cut some down too much, or made some way too small, but I have still made them fit on trucks that just couldn't take any other bushings with the kingpin and hanger taking so much wear that nothing else would fit.
Overall an inverted kingpin does make things way lower, or allow for more clearance, but it is a combination of a number of things that can allow for a truck that has both clearance, good turn and doesn't bind up, so yes it is still possible on a regular truck as I have done it for years, mainly on Indy, but I have done it to Ace trucks too - trim or reshape the top bushings, trim the top washer or put in thin or even flat washers, then once set up, angle grind off the excess kingpin and I am good to go.
Re kingpins, I can't recall if anyone actually said they had the height of the Ace low baseplate kingpins, but the regulars are about 37 mm and AF1 are 38 mm tall, that is the part sticking out of the baseplate. Most other brands are 35 mm as per Indy, Thunder, Venture, then 33 mm for Slappy trucks and a few others in between all of those.
A set of the old Indy low trucks had around 32 mm kingpins I think, or at least that is what they were when I checked and I have taken my own standard kingpins down about that far in the past, which still worked well enough.
I did a bushing height list as well, which was interesting to then see how tall everything was, but that was also before the Ace inverted trucks with special bushings came out.
Topic: New Ace AF1 *Low* announced (Read 60110 times)