hi, got 52 plate active sport punto.
no air con
just wondered if and how i could go about fitting an air-con unit onto it.
mates 51 reg has it and seems pretty straight forward.
so has anyone done it or know of anyone who has?
cheers
Vast amount of work to do..easier by far to buy one with aircon.
You need to do the following:
Pull the engine out to fit a compressor and pipes. Change pullies to take a longer and thicker belt to drive the compressor.
Strip out the entire dash and replace all the vent fittings with aircon parts..if you can get them.
Check that the wiring loom and ECU will support aircon. Often the loom and the ECU are different on aircon cars.
Change the radiator for a thicker aircon unit and change the hoses to fit,then fit and re-wire a double radiator fan.
If you are serious about aftermarket aircon then there are complete stand alone units for 12/24v designed for aircraft or boats. This means you don't have to plumb them or do much wiring but they use an electric compressor not the mechanical one in the car and use a huge amount of power..probably more than your battery / alternator can supply. They also cost upwards of £5k per unit.
Thinking about this one...climate control would need to interface with the car systems but would 'bolt on' aircon..if you were daft or desperate enough to fit the plumbing? Simple aircon is either on or off with no input from the car. It simply blasts cold air until you switch it off. All you should need is a power feed + switched relay for the compressor drive along with the powered recirculation flaps.
Looked this up on the web and there are companies that do aftermarket aircon apparently as a completely separate system from the car electronics with no interface beyond a switch in the cabin
Looked this up on the web and there are companies that do aftermarket aircon apparently as a completely separate system from the car electronics with no interface beyond a switch in the cabin
that was a very popular setup here in Israel in the 90's when cheap entry level spec cars arrived with no air cons and then the dealer fitted a rubbish Israeli made air con. with it's own buttons, no interaction with the car electrics.
many punto's and uno's and other small&1988-1996~ cars have this here.
actually it's forbidden since the 90s to sell a new car without air cons here! because the weather is too hot.
but from ~1998+ all air cons are original because the non original ones were complete crap and unreliable.
my uno had one and it didn't work, my punto have original one and it's quite good.
the non original air con is also making the dashboard and engine bay hard to work on because the parts located on non original places.
so my advise to you: if you dont realy need it - stay away, if you do need it - replace your car...
Aircon can increase the car's fuel consumption by 5% to 10%. It could be pulling 3 to 5 bhp (4kW) just to drive the aircon.
The electric generator makes 1bhp max (750 watts) and probably a lot less. So an electric aircon can never be up to much and it will hammer the charging system.
