Quote:
Originally Posted by teoman
I wonder if some of the lines can be coated with ceramic to reduce heat entry to the AC system.
|
Great idea! You could actually coat the low pressure lines (The large pipes that get cold with the AC on) in ceramic, and it would improve the efficiency of the system, at least a tiny bit. It will reduce pressures and temperatures inside the system the same way that reducing the fan speed will, meaning that more of the system's capacity can be used to cool the inside of the car.
What I did is I used pipe insulation from the hardware store to insulate the metal parts of the lines where possible, which seems to work pretty well. However, I didn't want to use something combustible (foam pipe insulation) on the part of the AC line that goes down to the compressor because it runs right past the exhaust header, so what I did instead is I cut an old heater hose down the center, put it over the pipe as well as I could, ziptied it in place, and wrapped the whole thing in electrical tape.
Not pretty and I'm sure it isn't as effective as thick foam pipe insulation, but I am sure it is at least somewhat effective since the heater hose is pretty thick rubber, but most importantly, it won't cause a fire. I am probably going to try to find a better solution though since the heater hose is ugly and it doesn't fit well around the bends.