A/C question

[BOCNasty]

I will take pic's & post. I still have to remove A/C from the car, I wonder how much of a pain this is going to be? I live in Hopewell Junction NY. About 90 miles south of albany.

[griffithstech]

The value of the car is always in the eye of the beholder.
If you are stripping it down for the track or doing a lot of mods,
and the car is "your car", who cares what you do with it.
However if you place the car on the market and a prospective
buyer is not so interested in the mod's you did for driveability and
is more interested in the looks, then chances are that market of customers will want the comforts of a/c and typically that client won't have much experience or motivation to re-install a complete ac system. The scenario goes like this in the typical phone call " I just found a great deal on a 197x 911, it is in perfect condition but the previous owner removed the a/c system. How much is a kit?" Well if you add up all the parts to make the a/c system comfortable (and you already a know a stock a/c system is not comfortable to begin with), and you tell them it will take 30-40 hours, then chances are either the car won't be sold to that potential client or their will be a lot of haggling on the price. Unless you can justify stripping out the system to save on weight I would suggest just leaving it be.

As far as the electrical system goes, you typically mount the two controls (thermostat and fan speed control) in the center console or they are located in the old style Behr brand knee pad vent; you are distributing power to the evaporator blower fan, front condenser fan if you have a front condenser. You have a power source (fuse panel) to supply power to the controls along with a relay, and you have a power line running to the engine compartment to cycle the compressor clutch.

If you want to figure out how you arrive at 30-40 hours for the first time installation just take a camera an shoot all the ac components in the like system, sit back and visualize the steps:
sourcing and procurement of parts,
mod's to sheet metal (cutting, brackets),
mounting of compressor brackets and compressor,
if the car is an older model with a single groove crank pulley,
you'll have to R&R the muffler, rear engine support when changing pulleys,
mounting of condensers,
routing and clamping of hoses,
mounting of evap box,
routing and mounting of a/c vent tubes and vents,
wiring,
inspection,
evacuation, charge and test

It is all doable but tedious.

Or you could just omit the a/c let the car sit in the garage when the weather is nice!


if the

[Peter & co]

Technical, precise and details,
jes... thanks a lot for your time griffithstech.
Ok, now should I go for power, or comfort?
HAaaaaaaaaaa!

[tonythetarga]

Pierre,
For comfort get a Cadillac! Porsche's are for POWER!

[Peter & co]

YA, yes , I mean OUI,
I choose , light and POWER!
Well I have to take a decision, so I did.
I'm good , I'm good, I'm... ;-)

[Peter & co]

Tony,
If you go to Tremblant this summer,
Let me know, I'll show you my RS -a/c.

Pierre (montreal)

[tonythetarga]

Oui, for sure. We can have a Molson Canadian. Would love to see the RS. Great cars. That car is made for the track, you should come out and see what it was meant to do.

[Peter & co]

Well,
not like your 3.2L.
See you this summer my friend,
Molson or Red wine?
French country here ;-)
Pierre

[Zef]

BOCnasty...The removal of the AC system is easy.The worst is to remove all the air line from the compressor to the fwd condensor...all the holding clamps were difficult to remove and I found some rusted area underneath them.The routing of the line is not to win a nobel price...

[Peter & co]

Your dawn right ,
But we're talking about putting one on a Pcar that doesn't have
any.
I think it could be a huge puzzle.

Pierre (montreal)

[BOCNasty]

I will try to take pic's of the removal of the A/C, it might help with someone trying to install one! How much weight will i be removing?

[tonythetarga]

somewhere in the range of 65 lbs.

[sergeshishik]

forgoe the a/c and bucks and drive faster, and make lots of turns. And I live in upstate NY and we could wait 10 more years for that heat.

[griffithstech]

Originally posted by Peter & co
Technical, precise and details,
jes... thanks a lot for your time griffithstech.
Ok, now should I go for power, or comfort?
HAaaaaaaaaaa!

Sounds like you really want power.
Roll down the windows and drive fast.

[Peter & co]

BOCnasty,
good ideal.
Are you going to put it on pelican tech...
Should help a lot of pelicaners.

Also,
Are you taking out all wiring and relay?

Pierre (montreal)

[Peter & co]

Griffithstech,

I save a copy of your technical message,
thanks again pal

Ya I prefer power, but, will I see the difference?

Pierre (montreal)

[Jim Sims]

"The worst is to remove all the air line from the compressor to the fwd condensor..."

No.

More difficult is removing the evaporator from the smuggler's box and most difficult is removing the 2 groove pulley from the crankshaft.

You are very unlikely to be able to sense any gain in performance from the loss of the 65 to 75 lbs of weight in the A/C system.

Be aware that there still could be refrigerant under pressure in the system; wear safety goggles.

[griffithstech]

Originally posted by Peter & co
Griffithstech,

Ya I prefer power, but, will I see the difference?

Pierre (montreal)

Will you see power without the ac?
hmmm ? How about an assertive maybe?

I would guess, if you knew your vehicle weight and 1/4 mile second time with the ac system, you could do some simple math and come up with say a 3 hp savings without the system and maybe 1 hp not driving the pulley (compressor clutch not engaged). So you might gain 4-5 hp without the system.

Or, if you open your windows and can direct a 6psi boost over the manifold pressure
you might gain 80 hp, however I forget at what ambient that might be, and that would cost at least $4k.

What the heck, get the ac system, locate plenty of condenser area, with the surplus of cold refrigerant
bolt on a spare evaporator on the engine air inlet
and figure in the Canadian Humidex for the day
and you'll probably come up with an average gain
of 10 hp across your normal summer.

Life is too short. Either go for the ac or drive the car and never complain.

[griffithstech]

Originally posted by Jim Sims
"The worst is to remove all the air line from the compressor to the fwd condensor..."

No.

More difficult is removing the evaporator from the smuggler's box and most difficult is removing the 2 groove pulley from the crankshaft.

Yes I totally agree with Jim, the worst part is yanking off the muffler, cursing at the enginears for not convincing the purchasing staff to buy stainless bolts and nuts, removing the rear engine support, bolting on a two groove pulley if and wondering why the marks look different then yours. And as you walk down the hardware isle in Home Depot wondering what diameter bolt you were suppose to get, you curse them for putting the little hardware store out of business next door because you know dam well they would have a better grade of stainless bolts. And later you drive over to Walmart, uselessly, hoping to find the muffler gaskets but when you can't find them you curse them too along with Homedeposit for sucking the cashflow out of your local town's economy and shipping it down to AR (no offense AR's). And on the way home you know you can always call the P parts guy down in FL that promises to "beat everyone's price" but then you start to think that maybe he's owned by Walmart too so forget that. So when you get home flop down in the chair and pull a cold Becks (or Labatt's, Molson or whatever) out of the frig, kick back and laugh at all you accomplished for the day. And as you scratch the label off the beer bottle you notice that is now says "distributed by Sam's Club". So you throw the bottle at your car and just then you remember that it was going to cost you $8000 to overhaul the engine, you remember this well because you heard that you can buy a new boxster engine complete for only $10000. So you say what the heck, and light up the kerosene heater in the garage and yank off the ac lines and suddenly you feel all choked up. First you think it's stress related and then that little guy on your shoulder says "what was that warning about an open flame around
dichlorodifluoromethane (R12), something about hydrogen flouride and chloride, and phosgene and so forth".

Standard tools, two jack stands and 40 hours, however
it is relaxing work.

[Peter & co]

Oh my god, ouff,
I'm laughing alone in my living room,
Very funny, jesssss...
Seinfeld should read this one!

Pierre (montreal)