Vehicle Prep for AC Effectiveness

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

Not sure if this is AC or Interior but considering the goal is to make the AC work as well as it can thought I’d drop it here.
What can you do to make the AC more effective on our classic cars that tend to have a lot of glass? More than a few of us have gone to SD7 compressors which are a bit on the small side so little bits help.

Low hanging fruit seems to be tinting the windows with a modern ceramic tint, replacing the weather stripping and door seals, and dynomatting the floors. What else is a good candidate, especially for someone who’s down to basically bare shell interior?

Thanks

[dhutton]

I use Dynamat followed by a layer of Thermozite insulation. Don’t forget the full firewall and cowl.

[Hotwire]

Dynamat is for sound deadening, not insulation. I'd put reflective barriers near your exhaust or heat sources, insulate the firewall and plug all the holes, use plastic weather shields on the inner door panels to seal off the outside, foam gaskets around door and window handles, good trunk weather stripping, and seal off the trunk behind the rear seat to keep air from flowing through. Also purchase carpet with deep pile, that helps to insulate from noise and heat coming from the floorboards.

Basically you want to insulate the interior of the car from any heat or outside elements. The firewall and exhaust area often gets overlooked and it's one of the main areas the radiate heat. Once the heat gets into the metal it starts to warm the interior of the car up.

[ULTM8Z]

The ceramic window tint is a lot of bang for the buck. When I did mine it was a night and day difference over no tint.

1971 Camaro with Classic Auto Air system. I did all the other things previously... thermal insulation everywhere, sealing the condenser to the radiator support, aux fan on the condenser, SD7 compressor (vs the 508 that's recommended for the kit).

Without the tint, on a ~95 day, I'd have to run the blower motor on medium speed to maintain comfortable temperature. With the tint, I only have to run it in low speed. Since the interior isn't subjected to as much thermal impingement, the air inside is able to cool a couple of degrees more as well (essentially a double benefit). On a ~95F day, I'm getting ~38F air out the vents once everything reaches steady state.

The other benefit is the car doesn't heat up as much sitting in the sun, allowing it to cool down more quickly once the A/C is activated.

[Tsaints1115]

Insulate the roof before installing the headliner.