All of the capabilities and uses for your horn kit or onboard air system

With a name like HornBlasters, there is one thing for sure that people know that we are good at: Providing the loudest train horns you can buy! You already know when you buy a HornBlasters kit, you are getting something incredibly LOUD. What you might not realize is the onboard air system that powers your horns can do so much more than just blow horns.

Once you realize the capabilities of your onboard air system, you will have a hard time imagining how you got by without it. From making sure your kid's raft is ready to go in time to powering your impact, having 150 PSI of onboard air at your disposal transforms you into a mobile problem solver. The one drawback? Much like having a pick-up, when friends find out what your ride can do, don’t be surprised when they are on the side of the road calling you for help!

AirHeads

As much as we love loud horns here at HornBlasters, you can’t have a badass horn without a powerful and dependable onboard air system. That's why we make sure to include only the best components we can get our hands on for our horn kits. Naturally, when you use the best parts, you are going to have the best performance, so many of our most popular kits can perform all sorts of pneumatic tasks that you typically won’t see out of a horn kit.

Sure, we love giving people a good jump or waking up the guy in traffic as much as anyone, but we also use our onboard air for pretty much anything we can. Some of us are into bagged vehicles and suspension, some of us have kids, some of us like to go offroading, but of us use our onboard air systems on a regular basis. Here are some of the things that our kits can do that we find the most useful.

Tired of Flats?

One of the first uses that come to mind when most people think of onboard air is filling up tires. Not everyone worries about suspension or using tools, but everyone has had a flat tire at one point in their life. While it's not going to save you from a total blow-out, having onboard air can be a life-saver if you are getting low or are able to patch up a small tear.

Sure, you can use a spare if you have one, but many of our customers love aftermarket wheels almost as much as their horns. When you upgrade your wheel size, you have no use for that factory spare tire anymore. Good thing you have that onboard air system where that spare tire used to be, right?

Of course, your car or truck tires aren’t the only kind of tires you can inflate with your system. If you like offroading as much as some of us do, you will see your system get good milage out on the trails as well. If your quad or your dirtbike gets low out there, there are no gas stations to stop by to air up. Instead of packing it up, you can be the one to save the day with your onboard air system!

Looking for everything you need to use your system for tire inflation? Make sure to add on our Tire Inflation Kit to your order! Our Tire Inflation Kit includes and Air Relocation Kit with a Quick Disconnect, 30 feet of coiled hose and an inflation gun with gauge!

Kid-Approved

Tires aren’t the only thing that you can inflate. Rafts, toys of every shape and size, slip n’ slides, little pools, etc. Anyone that has kids can tell you that the list goes on and on! You really don't know the value of onboard air until you are blowing your lungs out into a pool over and over again in 100-degree weather!

Instead of making your kids wait around while you nearly give yourself a heart attack, bring it over to the truck and let your kit do all the work for you. The kids will be having fun in the sun in no time and you won't feel like you just ran a marathon. Even if you don’t have kids, if you like to do anything outdoors, such as rafting or playing in the pool, you will get plenty of use out of your kit too.

Baggers and Boggers

While maybe not the first thing to come in mind to the average person, utilizing onboard air is probably the most common use. Regardless of if you want to lift it up or drop it down, you can't have air suspension without air. Instead of piecing together what you need to get your air suspension going, you can use your train horn kit to power your suspension system, saving you time, money and install space.

Even if you don’t want an air horn or train horn, our HornAir Onboard Air Systems give you more than enough performance that you need for your suspension. In fact, we are actually a one-stop-shop for all of your suspension needs. We carry such brands as Air Lift, Accuair and Slam Specialties, so if you are looking to make your ride smoother, we have everything you need.

Every suspension system is going to be different and the performance requirements for your onboard air system are going to differ depending on your needs. Just looking for something to just support load-leveling airbags? Our 232 systems would be all you need. Looking for something more advanced? We can go as big as you need. We have tanks up to 20 gallons in size and the most powerful mobile compressors on the market.

Making an Impact

Mechanically inclined? Why stop at just having a toolbox in your truck, when you could have a full arsenal of air tools ready to go at your disposal? While you can’t carry your garage everywhere with you, with the proper tools and our onboard air system, you probably won’t know the difference. There is a reason many service trucks run onboard air. Many issues on and off the road can be solved with a good onboard air system and the right power tools.

Just like air suspension, how powerful a system that you need is going to depend on what you are trying to do. Most air tools only require 90 PSI of pressure in order to work, but do have higher CFM requirements than other onboard air applications. What this means is with a smaller tank, you are going to have less time to use your air tool before you need to refill. This is why you see huge 50-gallon shop tanks. For mobile applications, you can still use your impact or smaller air tools on most of our systems. Just be aware that for anything heavy-duty, you are going to want to run a large tank and multiple compressors. Of course, if you did want to turn your ride into a full-fledged service truck, you could always pick up the military-grade Oasis XDT-4000 Air source system we carry and make your shop tank look like a kids toy!

A Day Without Air

Imagine you are trying to go out and ride your quad with your friends this weekend. Before you can take off, your wife wants you to blow up the kid's slip n’ slide and pool for them to play in while you are gone. You spend a solid hour trying to blow up everything with your mouth and end up running late and already exhausted. Because you are running late, you take some bumpy back roads to save time. Your stock suspension is doing nothing to ease the feeling of being violently shaken as you race over the rocks to meet up with the boys. The road gave you such a beating that one of your tires are running low. You want to stop to fill it up but there is nowhere nearby. Eventually, it gets so low it bursts, leaving you on the side of the road with a jack and a tire iron. It doesn’t look like you will be able to hit the trails today after all.

With one of our onboard air systems, you would have had most of the day to ride. Your kid's pool toys would have been done in under 5 minutes, allowing you to spend some time with them, watching them enjoy their pool toys before they leave. Since you have some extra time, you decide to take the scenic route. Sure, the roads can be bad, but with your air suspension, you hardly notice. You do, however, notice that one of your tires are going flat. You pull over and take care of it with your air chuck that pulls right off of the truck. You get to the trails before your friends are even out there and notice your quad isn't running quite right. You use the impact wrench from the truck to make sure everything is good to go for the tails.

 While this may be an extreme example, it goes to show just how much having onboard air can affect your day to day life. Our kits are the loudest you will ever find, but they also can get you out of a pitch and save the day with the right tools and know-how.