The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Air Conditioning for a 1956 3100 w235 recommendations

Well I will elaborate a little more on my thoughts. Commercially I repair and install A/C systems now since 1988. I know that different cars have to have different sizes coils for different heat loads. They coils are measured in BTU capacity. Here is what I am getting at, I can go conventional and just get a standard system from one of the company's which seems to be a good idea or I can piece a system with a little higher capacity and try and get the cooling I want. I love air Conditioning especially in the summer here where temps can reach 115 degrees plus.

I see a lot of cool custom add on's here from IFS, v-8's, interior and body work to many cool stuff. I was thinking why not a custom a/c. For cop cars they sell a non belt driven compressor that mounts in the trunk or really anywhere so they do not have to idle their cars and it solves the over heating issue I think. The other problem with the belt driven system it robs power from the engine stealing horsepower and in the stop and go traffic system the compressor slows down and slows the refrigerant in the system so the air coming from the vents warms up. Now the compressor is a little pricy about 1100 big ones but if I can piece a system with matching up the coils to the compressor and make the indoor section & vents work where its not too ugly I am game. It would eliminate relocating some of the brackets on the motor and changing the belt drive system. It would take rerouting the refrigerant lines and running power to the compressor. On paper I can make it work but not sure it would really make that much of a difference for the cost of it. I am not trying to do a heat load calculation or trying to engineer to the exact calculation however I was thinking if a normal design was a certain number of BTU's then why not just bump it up to the next size. I am not on a budget with the a/c but do not just waste money. It might just not be practical to do this and might be just smarter to buy a system already built.

I also wanted to know what you all liked about your systems so I can pick the best system if I decided to go that route.

Thanks guys.