BC

I'm in a dilema about what to leave out of the race car and what to leave in so its comfortable enough to drive up to say, Willowsprings if I don't feel like towing.

The conflicting part is that I may have to drive the car a while as a DD, driving to my appointments across the county, as the S2000 should sell soon, and the alternative is a 1995 Chevy Tahoe that measures its efficiency in Gallons per mile instead of miles per gallon!

The AC radiator, Compressor, HVAC fan, and HVAC box in the dash all weigh something. Quite a bit actually.

At my talent level for track time (uh, none right now), I am sure 100 pounds will make little difference, but a moderate amount of creature comforts could make quite a difference in the interim.

Any comments? Constructive recommended.

JG928S4

Keep the A/C. Every trip to the track = 1000 lbs of weight as your skills increase.

PorKen

Lightweight compressor + rear air unit only!

BC

Tempting.

Fogey1

Drop in an SBC and you can have 200lbs of AC.

John Veninger

Fabio421

Brendon, you can always take it out later when your situation changes. You said yourself that you don't have any racing experience. That means that this is all a learning experience for now. Why not learn in comfort for now and then later, when you want to get hardcore, you can take it out.

PorKen

trialattorney

Brendon,
On my 16 valve supercharged, I kept the AC, the stereo, amp, etc.....my feeling is that as a newbie on the track, your technique will improve well before your ability to drive your car at its limit will; while mine is street legal and able to be a daily driver, I trailer her to Willow so I know if something goes wrong, I can get her home. I ran over a piece of plexiglass in my 89 5spd last season, and couldn't find a tire the right size anywhere in AV; while I bring a mounted front and rear now days, having the trailer gives me more freedom on the track. Again, until your skill as a driver on the track improves (who knows, it m ay be great already), there is no reason to work on weight -I'd work on brakes and suspension before I took out the AC. Just my view. You can see my engine w/AC on my track/street car in my avitar. Cheers.

Zaner

Brendan,

Leave the A/C in! It's going to take a while for you to learn all the car has to offer on the track. The extra weight will not make a damn bit of difference at this point in the game!

hacker-pschorr

If you get really creative - move the condensor to somewhere other than in front of the radiator. Then on very hot track days you can run the AC without adding all of that heat into the radiator.

All LeMans closed cockpit cars are mandated to have A/C now.

BC

The HVAC box is already in. I may remove it to take the heater core out, since I REALLY don't think I will need that.

V2Rocket

In one of my magazines they mounted an intercooler on an MR2 on the bottom of the car...maybe you could do that with your condenser and put a scoop to it?

JEC_31

At first, my intial reaction was WTF?

1) AC has no place on a true race car. If driver well-being is an issue there are auxiliary methods of cooling him/her rather than sapping precious horespower with a terribly heavy system.
2) A true race car has no place being a daily driver.


Once I read down to the part about the daily driving I realized you had kinda/sorta mis-titled the thread.

So, go ahead and leave the AC in your hobby track car.


I remember a recent Dennis K post where he realized he was acting strange and forgetful at a gas station on the way home after a hard day of tracking and then drank gallons of water to recover from heat exhaustion. No AC in his black S4.

I also know from personal experience (at a crappy factory job I had long ago) that heat exhaustion is f__king evil because you don't realize it until it gets really bad and you're likely to hurt yourself or others with brain-fade.

hacker-pschorr

So the Corvette C6-R, Aston Martin LeMans, and Peugeot 908 are not true race cars?