Air conditioning - mechanical fan, electrical fan or both.

[dlacey]

I didn't realise you wanna retain the heater..I had assumed you could use that space for a combined heat/cool unit. Where I am, only cold matters. When I first came here I found it weird that the climate control on Malaysian cars has no red sector....only cold and colder...

[Simeon]

3 minutes ago, dlacey said:

I didn't realise you wanna retain the heater..I had assumed you could use that space for a combined heat/cool unit. Where I am, only cold matters. When I first came here I found it weird that the climate control on Malaysian cars has no red sector....only cold and colder...

 

I need to retain a ‘demister’ to pass safety inspections but I suppose I could do that without the heater, or even use a combination heater and evaporator like the Hurricane unit packaged by Dtech - I just don’t like the way the connections on that one project through the firewall right into the back of the engine. 

 

I guess I was trying to avoid something too difficult to return back to stock if required. I suppose keeping the heater on the shelf and using a simple block off plate for the hole into the heater plenum wouldn’t be the end of the world. I will be honest and say that the number of times that I have had the heater on in ANY car over the last year, you could count on one hand so it probably wouldn’t be a loss in the 02. It would open things up a lot back there though...

[Conserv]

I’m having lots of fun watching you work through this, Simeon, and would love to see a console-mounted system that (a.) worked better than the Frigiking, Behr, and Clardy systems, (b.) retained the fresh air function of the original heater and defroster, (c.) looked at least as “factory” as the Behr A/C, and (d.) could be relatively-easily repeated/reproduced by other ‘02 owners.

 

But....I still find that trunk-mounted solution somehow attractive! What if the air return path is through the short bulkhead below the front of the rear seat bottom? You could simply use some grates just above the rear seat floor to pull air into the evaporator and use outlets on the rear parcel shelf for the chilled air. The old Mercedes 300 Adenauers generally used rotatable “snorkels” on the rear parcel shelf that helped direct the chilled air towards the front of the passenger compartment. Since cooler air sinks, the air returns  just above the floor level would actually be recirculating, and re-cooling, cooler air, so the chilled output air could be almost as cool as Ray’s Frigiking ? — the gold standard ?!

 

(Does your car have a sunroof? If not, could the factory flow-through air system — the two tubes in the trunk — be used to recirculate air to the A/C?)

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Conserv

[thehackmechanic]

It's very cool (pun completely intended) to see some of these 3rd party evaporator assembly solutions coming to fruition, instead of being just a wish and a prayer and an unsubstantiated rumor. As I think I wrote on another post, at Oktoberfest in Pittsburgh, I saw my first installed Vintage Air mini-system. I'll admit that very little of this is in my book, as I'd never done one myself, and when I searched here on the FAQ, many of the posts were either unsubstantiated claims from the manufacturer, or folks who had started but had not completed projects. Rock on!

[Simeon]

2 hours ago, thehackmechanic said:

It's very cool (pun completely intended) to see some of these 3rd party evaporator assembly solutions coming to fruition, instead of being just a wish and a prayer and an unsubstantiated rumor. As I think I wrote on another post, at Oktoberfest in Pittsburgh, I saw my first installed Vintage Air mini-system. I'll admit that very little of this is in my book, as I'd never done one myself, and when I searched here on the FAQ, many of the posts were either unsubstantiated claims from the manufacturer, or folks who had started but had not completed projects. Rock on!

 

I thought that too. The Dtech / Stang guy gets a real hard time here but keeps plugging his system anyway (top marks for persistence). I have pointed out to him that the best sales pitch would be to present an installation in great detail in a post here with lots of pictures. This would help people to understand and therefore take the leap of faith. I know that @Whaledriver has made that leap and I would be interested in his view now. 

 

The problem here is that the manufacturers seem to want you to commit to buying their product on the basis of scant information. We can laugh at the Alibaba adverts which show a length, width, height measurement stretched out across a grainy photo but this is for a $35-$50 product. When I asked a major US manufacturer of aftermarket systems if they had a detailed drawing with dimensions, they sent me to ‘page 49’ of their catalog where there is just a width and height measurement stretched across a grainy picture. Given that none of these systems just fall into place, it would be nice to have as much detail as is reasonably practical to help with integration into the tight nooks and crannies of our cars. Buying something of the order of $500 to $1,000 in the hope that it *might* fit is not really my style. 

 

I know some manufacturers will lend you a dummy case to see if it fits but when you are trying to squeeze it all into a tight space, it’s a lot easier to go with something that you know will fit and someone else has done the head scratching for you.  That’s why those old systems are hard to beat.  

 

Kalori also deserves a recommendation as they have detailed scale drawings for all of their products and even 3D CAD models that you can download if you are suitably endowed to use them. 

 

 

[Simeon]

Guess what I just speed read?

 

 

Aside from being a great read on the subject, it has crystallised a few things in my mind. I am definitely going to go with a trunk mount system. Rob makes a very good point about the console / dashboard of your car being a focal point that you have to look at every day. I am just not sure enough that I can do a custom console justice to fit around a universal evaporator. If anything, I would favour the look of an under dash unit and no console with just a clean carpeted tunnel peaking out underneath. 

 

I have settled on the trunk mount because I know I can do a good job of the installation, it will be large enough that I know it will get the job done on R134a refrigerant and it avoids a lot of the traps an under dash unit brings.

 

I am thinking about the Old Air unit below as there is a ‘simple’ way to install with the return air vent just shooting up through the parcel deck should it all prove too hard, or the stretch target ‘challenge’ method (based on an idea by Steve).

 

The challenge method is where the return air inlet is split into two ducts and notionally connected to the air flow ‘trunks’ under the parcel shelf and therefore collecting the return air via the vent under the rear of the head lining on my non-sunroof car. I could then also investigate installing flap valves into these ducts that could allow collecting fresh air from the outside via the vents or letting the vents work as before with a further set of flaps when the AC is off.

 

The outlet ducts would have two centrally mounted in the parcel shelf blowing straight forward and two passing under the back seat to vent out underneath the rear seat front.

 

This is quite unconventional for a car AC but coupled with the return being at roof level, I think it would be quite effective at cooling from the bottom up and drawing out hot air from the top. 

 

There are probably a host of problems with this concept and I would be interested in hearing them. 

 

https://www.oldairproducts.com/product/ip-2000t-ac-system

 

[Stevenc22]

^ how do you run all those corrugated hoses from the evaporator in the trunk to the dash? That is probably 3 inch piping which you cannot just hide under the carpets and i surely would not run that under the frame of the car. I just never understood how you could possibly install a trunk mount kit in a 2002.

[Simeon]

6 hours ago, Stevenc22 said:

^ how do you run all those corrugated hoses from the evaporator in the trunk to the dash? That is probably 3 inch piping which you cannot just hide under the carpets and i surely would not run that under the frame of the car. I just never understood how you could possibly install a trunk mount kit in a 2002.

 

Good question.

 

I was thinking about running them in hard lines under the floor down the right hand side of the car, following a similar path to the fuel return line on the left. Depending upon how tight against the body they are installed, I would even run a steel section over the top of them for at least part of the run to provide some more protection / insulation. I haven’t investigated the available clearance in the top of the transmission tunnel yet. This is another possible route for some hard lines. I figure, if you can run fuel pipes and hoses using a similar path then A/C hoses  and pipes should be OK. 

 

Actually, just read your question and realised that I answered the wrong one! Amazing how our brains do that.

 

The answer to your actual question is that I wouldn’t be running the corrugated hoses to the dash. The vents would be on the rear parcel shelf and on the front face of the rear seat near the floor. For the floor vents, I might have to dive out the trunk floor and the dive back in to the angled panel under the seat to avoid interfering with the seat base / back. This would be no more than a few inches, up high near the diff. 

Edited November 14, 2018 by Simeon

[thehackmechanic]

I applaud your brio in being willing to pursue this, but I think that there will be a big hit in the effective cooling you get due to the distance that the cold air has to travel through the tubes. In a console-mounted system, that fan is right behind or next to that evaporator, blowing air through it and right at your face (or your right knee :^). It's not going to be nearly as efficient with the evaporator in the trunk and the cold air ducted into the passenger compartment. If you duct the air so it's aimed at your face, you have the loss through the ducts. If you don't do that and just have the cold air spilling into the passenger compartment from the back, it'll be much colder right where the air spills out than it'll be for you, the driver.

 

Just my 02 cents...

[Simeon]

7 minutes ago, thehackmechanic said:

I applaud your brio in being willing to pursue this, but I think that there will be a big hit in the effective cooling you get due to the distance that the cold air has to travel through the tubes. In a console-mounted system, that fan is right behind or next to that evaporator, blowing air through it and right at your face (or your right knee :^). It's not going to be nearly as efficient with the evaporator in the trunk and the cold air ducted into the passenger compartment. If you duct the air so it's aimed at your face, you have the loss through the ducts. If you don't do that and just have the cold air spilling into the passenger compartment from the back, it'll be much colder right where the air spills out than it'll be for you, the driver.

 

Just my 02 cents...

 

This is good feedback by the way.

 

I was working on the assumption (and I probably need to check this assumption) that a trunk mounted system would be large enough and have big enough fans to compensate for this. The volume and velocity of chilled air being such that it compensates for not being ‘in your face’. I always believed that the biggest compromise for the console mounted arrangement was that the packaging constraints coming from it being jammed under the dash limited its performance and its ‘strength in depth’ meaning that having it blow directly on your face is the only way to get a pleasant experience. This would give you an experience more like your home AC system where the air flow is diffused as much as possible rather than relying on people sitting directly under : in front of outlets. 

 

I also thought that when sitting in the driver’s seat, the distance to the rear parcel shelf is not that much further away that the dashboard. 

 

Again, I assumed that something designed to cool the interior of the average American classic car would not struggle to usefully cool our little cars. If anything, I expected it to be too cool!  I will now be double checking my thinking here by discovering the CFM and BTU /KW rating of the unit. Logic tells me it has to be more powerful than the typical under dash unit as the evaporator matrix is bigger and there is room for larger fans. If this doesn’t translate to more powerful performance then I may reconsider. In this case, my fall back is the under dash unit with the ‘no console’ look, though this will ultimately limited in size.

 

I may even consider ditching the glovebox and installing a unit high up, against the firewall behind where the glovebox might be. 

 

I just seem to be strongly against a custom console for some reason. 

[dlacey]

In most car AC installations you see that the evaporator is mounted as close as possible to the air vents/outlets and as close as possible to the front seat occupants. 

I have another homebrew AC unit on a jaguar inside the original heater box (in the engine bay).. I really notice how weak this arrangement is even with it running so strong it ices. So I believe the "evaporator close to you" guideline is good. 

Also beware that any ducting of cold air will suffer from condensation on the exterior of the duct...that can cause damage long term.

If you wanna avoid the long refrigerant pipe run you could run the compressor off the diff output flange.. sounds crazy but I have seen it done.

[ray_]

MikeS has posted before that the 12v blowers from hair dryers could be installed directly into the defroster ducts.

 

You might could cobble those in line as "helpers!"

 

... I would think vent tubing condensation could be mitigated by the same tape used on the evap metal fittings...

 

https://nostalgicac.com/insulation-cork-tape-per-roll.html

 

Cheers,

 

 

[Simeon]

29 minutes ago, dlacey said:

In most car AC installations you see that the evaporator is mounted as close as possible to the air vents/outlets and as close as possible to the front seat occupants. 

I have another homebrew AC unit on a jaguar inside the original heater box (in the engine bay).. I really notice how weak this arrangement is even with it running so strong it ices. So I believe the "evaporator close to you" guideline is good. 

Also beware that any ducting of cold air will suffer from condensation on the exterior of the duct...that can cause damage long term.

If you wanna avoid the long refrigerant pipe run you could run the compressor off the diff output flange.. sounds crazy but I have seen it done.

 

Again, more good feedback. As I think I have been clear, I know very little about air conditioning having grown up in the UK where it was extremely unusual so my automotive experiences have never stretched to it. 

 

Looking at all of the systems made by the likes of Vintage Air and Old Air, they rely heavily on distribution via ducting (as do modern factory systems) so I always assumed that this wouldn’t be a problem. Again logic would dictate that a system with hoses / ducts would definitely be subject to more losses than a system without, but you would have to assume that the system designer would take this into account in sizing the system so that the benefit of the larger size unit outweighs the dis benefit of the ducts.

 

I am am interested in some feedback from those who may have one of these modern retrofit systems that use long hose distribution installed in another car as to how you find its performance. 

 

Looking to provide some insulation to those ducts is a good idea (I think of the heavily insulated foil ducts in my ducted air conditioning at home). This will avoid condensation and improve efficiency so obviously worth thinking about. 

[ray_]

I'm sure the suppliers of in-trunk systems will be happy to discuss with you as well.

 

Cheers,

[Conserv]

Simeon,

 

I am assuming the capacity of the evaporator and blowers are considerably greater than the pee-wee units we stuff into the console. And those rear parcel shelf outlets, a la a 1961 300d Adenauer, will effectively cool the top half of the passenger compartment. I’m not certain I’d want to be a rear seat passenger when those vents are running on high. But no one really sits in my backseats.

 

I think it’s critical that you find room for the largest condenser possible.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by Conserv