X1/9 AC Restoration and Upgrade - What the wife wants, she gets

Greg, Thanks.

That's good to hear since I posted all this hopefully so others might benefit. There is little information out there for us AC idiots, and just some of the arcane fitting terminology and such are one of the things that gets in our way. It will be a fun project. Just measure the area in front of the radiator and get as big a parallel flow condenser as you can fit in there! The rest is downhill.:dance:
 
I remembered one more thing, then I will shut up

and let this thread fade into Xweb history.

I forgot to mention the vacuum pump and gauges. I picked those up from Harbor Freight. A two stage pump and the standard gauge set. Set me back about 250. Probably cheap, but if they last through the two other vintage ACs that I need to do, that will put me ahead of where I would be if I had to have some shop do the vacuum and recharge. Plus I now have the knowledge to do all this myself and I now understand all that AC gobbledegook.

I vacuumed the system to 25 inches Hg (which is as far as it will go at this altitude) for 45 minutes. It held a vacuum for 30 minutes at least, so there were unlikely to be any leaks. Then I hooked the cans up to the service hose and added two cans of 134a at 12 oz each. Need another 6 oz or so I think. For the procedure, just look it up or get an AC maintenance book. It is pretty straightforward after a couple of reads. It took about 30 minutes for each can.

And finally, what did the wife think? She said , "[*sniff*] It cools pretty well".

End of story. [fade to my favorite X1/9 theme music, "Man in the Machine" by Stevie Be Zet]
 
PN for Compressor Head with 14-1 thread fittings

If you don't want to change the stock hose fittings that connect to the compressor, when you order the compressor from Nostalgic, do so by phone and request they swap the head out to UAC CH5000C UPC 7-11307-04153-4.
 
Doug, that is good information to know,

especially the fact that Nostalgic Air will swap the compressor heads. Ellychiprout was able to do the same when installing a new compressor while maintaining the old hoses. Basically all the Sanden 5 bolt heads interchange. So any available configuration of high and low pressure side head fittings can be swapped onto any Sanden 4508/SD5H14 compressor. I upgraded to a Sanden 4509/SD7H15 (seven cylinder) compressor, but I re-did all the hoses anyway. The SD7H15 is noticeably smoother in operation, plus it has more capacity. Given the nearly 12 feet of hose between the compressor and the condenser, the X1/9 system is nearly like a large RV in that regard, so I figured the extra capacity wouldn't hurt.
The re-build appears to be holding up very well. A couple of weeks ago the wife did an all day Saturday run around town in very hot weather. Many stops and restarts. She said she drove "in air conditioned comfort." And I have sat with the engine idling and the AC running while she did other errands lately. Now that cooler weather is beginning, it only gets turned on in the afternoon when the sun is still intense. Works every time. Let's see what next spring brings.
 
I had some time and a thought about installing a larger condenser seeing that I have a Fiat 500 Abarth sitting in the barn. I purchased a new stock condenser from Rock Auto for $110 delivered to my home in Canada. Part of this work on my car is for the work I will be doing for Bob Martin on his engine swap, Bob also wants me to install AC in his black Dallara. The condenser is 1.8x bigger than stock and is all aluminum. I reused the fittings from the Abarth to attach to the condenser and crimped up a few adapter hoses as well. Today I charged the system, but I need warm weather to test it out. With the smaller condenser on hot days performance dropped off, I am hoping that this unit will resolve that issue.

Here are some pictures.

TonyK.
Grimsby Ontario Canada
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That is a lot of fin under there. Between the upgraded radiator, condenser and intercooler.
 
kmead said:
That is a lot of fin under there.
Click to expand...
I'm trying to make out what some of those coolers are for. I believe this is a 500 transplant car, so maybe the two long/narrow coolers (top and bottom) are part of the 500 engine package?
 
Thanks Karl.
I certainly don't intend to sound critical, but it is difficult to believe a radiator that small will be sufficient for a turbo air-to-water intercooler. They need to remove a LOT of heat, especially for extended use (i.e. more than a few minutes). The thermal exchange (between air and water) at one end plus the reverse exchange at the other end is limited by some thermal properties of physics, and heat-soak will eventually build. They also require a very high volume pump to circulate the coolant. But I am only speculating without knowing the values for each component in this example. I'm mainly basing on what I've found; I considered a A-to-W IC for my turbo build but decided against it after considerable research. However every application is different so 'apples and oranges'.
And since I'm already sounding negative (sorry), I might as well add that a front mounted oil cooler seems like a LOT of distance to move the oil. Hope the pump has a huge flow volume, plus T-stat bypass and check valve to prevent starvation.
Apologies for any criticism, just offering my opinion.
 
There are 5 rads for the Air to water intercooler on this installation plus 12 feet of fined copper cooling tubes beneath the car. The Fiat Abarth Air to air intercoolers (2) are only 6"x 6" and 2" thick. I have the same surface area of intercooler as the Air to Air intercooler of the stock car plus the copper tubing. There are no oil coolers on the front of the car only the water to oil cooler in the stock engine set up.

Heat soak can be seen as I have an intake plenum temperature gauge on the dash. That being said I am pushing 24 PSI of boost, that is 6 PSI higher than stock, so I expect to see some heat soak on 90 degree plus days. The Abarth ECU will ramp back boost when plenum temperatures get to about 160 degrees F. Unless in a racing environment, I do not see the 160 degrees F hold for very long. About 120 degrees is the norm on hot days with spirited driving. 80 degrees days and the plenum temperature is about 100 degrees F. Below that temperature and the gauge does not move.

But this thread is about AC on the X and not about intercoolers. Sorry for the digression.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada
 
TonyK said:
There are 5 rads for the Air to water intercooler
Click to expand...
TonyK said:
There are no oil coolers on the front
Click to expand...
Ahh, I was mislead. :) That makes much more sense.

TonyK said:
The Abarth ECU will ramp back boost when plenum temperatures get to about 160 degrees F.
Click to expand...
That is a great feature I'd like to include. I don't think I've seen that on the aftermarket ECU's; I know electronic boost control is common but don't recall seeing the temp input connected to it. I'll have to look into that more.
 
Misled indeed. Hah. I should have figured it out from the third image which shows the hose going from the lower to the upper unit.

Still a lot of fins.

Most modern injection systems have an intake air temperature sensor to calculate the mass of the air taken in. Hot intake air temps lead to detonation so the system needs to compensate with reduced boost, changes in timing or in the past enrich the mixture to cool things down.

Tony: I had forgotten just how far you had gone to ensure a cool intake.
 
The aftermarket ECU's use intake air temp to factor mixture, but I don't know that they also calculate the boost control with it.
 
I was at Bob Martin's from the 15th to the 22nd of October and one of the things we worked on his 87 X was the AC system. The system was discharged and we changed the expansion valve on the car. I was surprized to see a cover over the expansion valve and AC hoses. The car Bob has only had 1 other owner and I have never seen anyone mention this cover. The cover also has foam padding in it and when I was changing the rubber brake feeder lines noticed that the upper part of the dash also had foam padding on it.

Does anyone have this foam material and AC cover on their cars? My 87 does not have it.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.





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No foam on my '87, but yes to the condensate cover on the expansion valve. etc.

You can see the edge of mine in this old pic - I was looking at the relay I found dangling.

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Looks like carpet padding applied using glue.

The cover is standard for AC cars.
 
The cover may be useful in humid climates, but in the Southwest it is less functional. I removed it during the AC refurbish and "forgot" to re-install it. The wife mention one drop of water on her feet once. But other than that I found its absence has gone unnoticed.
 
I had the same thought as Karl; looks like a non-factory padding (like for home carpeting) that someone added. If the plastic box collects condensation, then you probably don't want something in there to soak it up / hold it wet to mold and rot.
 
It’s rather pointless, since it has no drain....

If the expansion valve etc., are properly wrapped , there shouldn’t be any condensate anyway. My original was not, and it would drip. When I replaced it years ago, I encased it with butyl, no more sweaty fittings :)
 
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