Im thinking about removing the a/c and blower motor in my vehicle. Since my motor swap i never recharged the a/c line and really havent had a use for it in almost 2 years. The car is only driving in mild buffalo summers. So a loss of weight and gain of some underhood space would be nice. Is this a huge project ? Can anyone give me a new belt size required after a/c compressor is removed ? Any tips would be appreciated. Oh and will the coolant run hotter since it would no longer be running through a heater core ?

 

+1 I'm interested in those questions too

The summer here in AZ is brutal, but I'm very doubtful I'd drive my Z much during the day in the summer when I have other cars with great A/C's that are better long distance cars anyway.
I figure the summer heat is hard as hell on a FI cars and it isn't as fast when it's 115 degrees outside. Otherwise I never use my A/C much anymore during the rest of the year

When the car is cold and first start it up, I've noticed that it warms up the coolant WAY faster than with the A/C off according to my aftermarket coolant gauge, but it almost doesn't matter as far as going WOT since the oil takes way longer than the coolant to warm up

 

with the a/c on, your fans will come on no matter what temp the motor is. with it off, your fans will only come on at 230 degrees. thats the reason for a little longer warm up with it on.

the engine coolant runs through a separate core, so your engine coolant should run at the same temp, except for what i mentioned above.
to remove the entire system, you need to remove nearly every single part from the front seats forward inside to get at and remove the heater box to get to the a/c core. literally, you will be looking at a completely stripped firewall. i know, i have done it, lol.

 

I removed my AC. This is the first car where I removed the AC but did NOT go under the dash to retrieve the core. In my MR2 and my Honda it wasnt too bad to get in there and take them out... but they were so light anyway. The part thats in there is just like a small aluminum radiator and weighs maybe6-8lb I would estimate. I didnt want to remove my dash from this car, because it can be difficult to get it all back together perfectly without any broken clips or rattling parts. Plus this is a pretty new car, if I ever decided to sell it some day, it would be no problem to put the AC right back in from this point.

Everything from the firewall forward is very easy to get out of course, and thats where most the wieght it.. and of course its all weight towards the nose of the vehicle which is nice to ditch.

The AC compressor has its own belt, so you do not need to get a shorter belt when you take it off, you will actually have one less belt, and you can also remove the tensioner for that belt and the bracket that compressor mounts to.

After i removed my AC, I made new powersteering lines and modified the power steering bracket to put my powersteering pump where the AC was, it made a ton of room in my engine bay and balanced it out. I have only a few feet of PS hosing in the car now, instead of like 20 feet stock.

 

The other idea behind moving my PS was to make enough room to run a 3" intake straight to each turbo. I havent done it yet, but there is definatly enough room. It also made it soooooo much easier to work with the charge pipes on the passenger side of the engine now.

 

i live in dallas AC is a must

 

After i removed my AC, I made new powersteering lines and modified the power steering bracket to put my powersteering pump where the AC was, it made a ton of room in my engine bay and balanced it out. I have only a few feet of PS hosing in the car now, instead of like 20 feet stock.[/QUOTE]

Amazing idea !!! I noticed I started having wear spots on the aluminum tube with the filter because it is so close to the PS hard line that comes directly off the pump in a u shape. It would be nice to relocate and not have to worry about that. If I cant find someone to fab that around where I live would you be interested in fabbing the lines, brackets ect. for me for some $$$ ?

 

One other question i forgot about, by removing all of this stuff do you get any CEL's ?

 

No CELs. You do need to extend the wiring for the Power Steering pressure sensor, because the VDC uses it and would trip a VDC error without it. I learned that by seeing if I could ditch the sensor and call it a day.

If someone asked for the stuff, I have a list of components that I used to build the relocation, and I could put together a kit. The only semi difficult part is that I would have to have Brandon take my custom one-off bracket (which was made with part of the stock one) and program it into the CAD so that we could CNC replicas. I would need a months notice to put it all together. You will also have to take the 90 degree fitting on the pump where the fluid tank fills the pump and cut it and weld it facing up, since the pump is upside down now.

 

its very easy, as long as you know what components are for the AC, you just remove them


WATCH out for the green slime!!! a few people will think thats funny...


the stuff under the dash is HUGE, i would definitely get all that out, then you can seriously get under the dash if you wanted, a lot more room.

the hardest thing about removing the stuff under the dash is that you have to unbolt the whole bar that goes across under the dash for the steering support. then it will come out....

good luck, the AC compressor comes out easy, then you can run one belt as well, the condensor is easy and lets the radiator get more air, the lines are kinda easy except where they go into the dash and the stuff under the dash is a big PITA unless you have your car stripped out like i did when i got my cage....

 

Did you take the heater box and all of their components too or just the a/c. I understand the a/c has a seperate core from the heater but i dont really need any of the heater components either so if I can remove those while I already have the entire dash apart then i will. So I guess what im saying is by also ripping out the heater core will I be messing with engine coolant temps. or is this core normally bypassed until you turn on the heat in your car ?

 

Priceless Picture!

 

I did this to my car when it was turbo and had no issues what so ever. It was very straight forward and once you get rid of all of the hardlines and the condensor you will find that taking off the front end of the car is a breeze.

 

yeah, heater box too, i live in florida and barely ever drive the car so who cares!!!


its easy just takes a little while cause you have to pull the whole dash off...

 

Well looks like im ready for the project, if I have extra time i will take some pics make a diy for everyone else out there interested in doing this. Wish me luck !